Arianna Barbetta, United States

Arianna Barbetta is a PhD student in the department of Infectious Disease, Immunology and Pathogenesis at University of Southern California, in Dr. Emamaullee’s Lab. The research on liver transplant immunology focuses on characterizing immunological phenotypes associated with rejection in liver transplant recipients, using single-cell technologies including Imaging Mass Cytometry. My projects aim to improve the knowledge of the mechanisms at the base of acute rejection in liver transplant recipients, both adults and children. The identification of new immune cells populations will help to establish biomarker of rejection that can transform the histological and biochemical monitoring of the allograft function. Those populations can be a target for development of new immunosuppression medications, against specific adaptive and/or innate leukocytes subpopulations involved in rejection, directly advancing the practice of clinical liver transplantation. She received MD degree in 2015 from University of Pisa (Italy) and relocated to New York in 2016, where she completed a 2-year research fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in the Thoracic Surgery Department, which focused on treatment and outcomes of esophageal cancer patients. She will complete her PhD in transplant immunology in the academic year 2024/2025.