Dalhousie University – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr. Barra is a senior postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University in Canada with a strong background in the molecular biology of cancer. As a postdoctoral fellow she has, among other projects, investigated the role of innate immunity as a key modulator of interferon response to viral infections and to oncolytic virus-based immunotherapy, and developed novel computational approaches to analyze complex multi-omics data. Currently, she is employing multi-omics approaches coupled with spatial transcriptomics to investigate the interplay between the immune and tumor microenvironments within the context of Wilms tumor, the most common extra-cranial solid malignancy of childhood.
Dr. Barra obtained a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from KU Leuven-VIB (Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, Belgium) where she studied the role of the long non-coding RNA NEAT1 and chemosensitivity of epithelial cancers. Prior to this, she obtained a BSc and MSc (Summa cum Laude) from the University of Milan – Bicocca (Italy). Dr. Barra has an extensive international research portfolio that includes visiting fellowships at the Biotech Research and Innovation Center of Copenhagen (Denmark), the European Institute of Oncology (Italy) and at the Leiden University Medical Center (The Netherlands).