Prof. Dr. Francesca Alessandrini

Francesca Alessandrini graduated 1989 in Biology at the Department of Animal Biology of the University of Modena, Italy, where she completed ultrastructural and cytochemical investigations on gill morphology following experimental lead intoxication in freshwater fishes. In 1994 she obtained her Ph.D. in Physiopathology of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Modena, performing her research activities partly at the University of Illinois at Chicago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and mostly at Harvard Medical School (USA). Her investigations focused on experimental models of lung preservation before transplant. In her first post-doc at the Harvard School of Public Health (USA) she started investigating the impact of environmental particles on lung injury. In 1997 she joined the Institute of Allergy Research at the Helmholtz Munich, first as a post-doc, then as a principal investigator. In 2007 she obtained the qualification for teaching in higher education (Habilitation) and in 2017 she was appointed as Adjunct Professor in Experimental Allergology at the Faculty of Medicine of the Technical University of Munich.

Alessandrini’s lab interests cover the influence of both environmental pollution, especially anthropogenic particles, and irritant gases on lung and skin allergic inflammation and the effects of climate change on pollen-induced lung allergic reactions. Moreover, its activities focus on studying the impact of combining the above listed risk factors with individual susceptibility factors like obesity or with nutrition factors on allergy development. To gain deeper understanding of such mechanisms of interaction, thereby providing new insights into allergy prevention and treatment, the lab has developed several mouse models of allergic lung and skin diseases. 

Mouse Models of AllergyAnthropogenic Air PollutionTranslational Research