Laura Teodori - candidate for Secretary

I was born in Rome. I received my doctor degree in Biology, magna cum laude, from the University of Rome La Sapienza. My two-year postdoctoral training was at the MD Anderson Hospital Cancer Research Institute at the University of Texas in the USA, working on the application of multiparametric flow cytometry on the detection of early diagnostic cellular neoplastic markers. I was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Radiobiology, University of Muenster in 1981.

I have contributed to the development of the FC technique in Italy, co-founding the Italian Group of Cytometry in 1986. I work in Rome at ENEA, National Agency for Energy and the Environment. I teach "Cytometry" at the School of Oncology in the Medical Faculty at the University of Rome La Sapienza and Biosefety at the Department of Occupational Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata. I was awarded short term mobility funds by the Italian Research Council in the years 1999-2001 to spend several months at the University of Muenster and University of Heidelberg in Germany and at the New York Medical College in the USA. I participate in the European Centre of Excellence on Molecular Medicine in Lodz, Poland, and I am a scientific consultant for the local Government for the Internationalization activities of “Lazio Development”. At present I am involved in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering studies. I am author of more then 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals. I served as an ISAC Biological Councilor and chair of the Membership Committee in the years 2004-2008.

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Goals and objectives

ISAC is the premier home for cell-based applied and basic research and as a scientist working in such a field I feel privileged to have served as a biological councillor and have chaired the membership committee in ISAC together with my fantastic co-chair Zofia Maciorowski: I feel even more privileged now to be nominated by petition to run for the position of Secretary. A great society must make their members great: as a councillor I’ve made a great effort to increase the benefits of our members, starting from young members who are of utmost importance for the future of ISAC. However there is still a lot to do in this direction.

If I am elected, I’ll work hard to help make the young members programs more consistent and more numerous. We have to invest in young talent: the future ISAC leaders. I will help to raise the level of importance of education and training to the forefront of Society activities. Education should be seen as one of the most important functions of the Society and I think this opportunity is still not well developed in ISAC. I would also like to increase the ISAC internationalization by supporting program opportunities for emerging countries like India and China. In fact, during my service as a biological councilor, I’ve promoted a sliding-scale based membership fee in order to support the less advantaged countries and this has increased their possibility to join us and bring their great contribution of ideas and actions. I believe that international cooperation is necessary for ISAC to survive.

I am also planning a stronger collaboration among the National groups and ISAC especially in the US where many user groups exist, and I would like to help increase their communication with the society, regarding how ISAC can meet their needs. Being involved myself in applied research in the field of early medical diagnosis, I do recognize the importance of high quality core facility managers and highly talented technicians and the importance of constant and consistent collaboration between basic and applied scientists from one side and core facility managers and technicians from the other. I think these issues should be given a higher priority by ISAC and if I’m elected I’ll work in this direction. Great opportunities are surfacing in the development of single cell analysis as well as in the integration of imaging technologies in new emerging fields such as tissue engineering, nanotechnology and system biology. ISAC has a unique opportunity to take a proactive position to bring academia and industry into new partnerships. A great part of my background as a senior researcher of a public research agency in this field was based on promoting such partnerships (e.g. Pharma-Finance events). I would be privileged to have your support in implementing these plans for ISAC during the next few years. As a final comment, I would like to acknowledge the support of my co-chair Zofia on reaching our objectives during our co-chairship of the ISAC-membership service committee, she is currently running for clinical councilor.