Short Bio
Michela Novelli graduated in Biology at the University of Pisa in 1986 and received her Ph.D. in Experimental Pathology in 1993. In 1998 she was a full-time post doctoral research fellow in the Laboratory of Experimental Diabetes of Hospital Clìnic de Barcelona (Director: Prof. R. Gomis) with the support of a grant from EASD-Bayer Fellowship for young scientist. From 2000 to 2018 she has been Assistant Professor at the University of Pisa. She is presently Associate Professor of General Pathology at the Department of Translational research of the University of Pisa.
Research experience of Prof. Novelli has been carried out in the field of experimental pathology and has dealt mostly with studies on the physiopathology of endocrine pancreas and aging.
Recently her research has focused on the following topics:1) study of the ability of Hypericum perforatum and its component hyperforin, to exert protective effects on cytokine-induced damage to pancreatic beta cells and evaluation of the potential of two compounds in COVID therapy. 2) Study of the effects of dioxin in isolated rat pancreatic islets: evaluation of functional and ultrastructural alteration and changes in gene expression. Highlighting of the selectivity of the action of dioxin for pancreatic beta cells. 3) Evaluation of glucose tolerance and structural and ultrastructural changes of the endocrine pancreas in mice with partial or total deletion of the eNOS gene. 4) Study of the effects of toxic substances commonly used to develop experimental model of Parkinson’s disease, on the beta cell line INS 832/13.
Her scientific activity has resulted in 61 publications in international journals indexed on PubMed, 8 book chapters and 90 abstracts; total number of citations 1753; H-index 20.