DOMENICA DELIA

Domenica D’Elia works at the Institute for Biomedical Technologies of the Italian National Council (CNR) in Bari, Italy. She is Chair of EMBnet - The Global Bioinformatics Network, and member of the Bioinformatics Italian Society (BITS). She is also Deputy of the Training Coordinator of ELIXIR-ITA, member of GOBLET, the “Global Organisation for Bioinformatics Learning, Education & Training”, and scientific peer advisory and project reviewer for the Knowledge Transfer Programme for Bioinformatics, an initiative of the Centre for Proteomic & Genomic Research in South Africa. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Bari; after few years working at the University on the biogenesis of mitochondria she moved to the CNR, where she has been working as a Project and Team Coordinator for the development of specialised biological databases. In this role, she has leaded and contributed to the development of diverse databases, bioinformatics integrated platforms and to the development of data mining tools. Presently her main research interest is the study of mechanisms of action and functions of miRNAs that may open new perspectives in the use of miRNAs as therapeutic targets and non-invasive biomarkers of diseases and of therapy response. Another research area she is investigating is the protective role of plant miRNAs in human cancer and age-related diseases. She also collaborates in a project, based at the Institute for Biomedical Technologies in Bari, for the development of a bioinformatics suite for the classification and analysis of non-coding RNAs. This bioinformatics platform has been designed to include also tools for gene expression profiling in total RNA-seq and small RNA-seq experiments, and for the discovery of ncRNAs functional interactions. Her activities are in support of data curation and functional analysis. She focuses on the discovery of ncRNAs functional role in the regulation of gene expression in the biomedical domains, collaborating with the Computer Science Departments of the University of Bari and Verona (IT) and with data producers at the Italian “Research Council for the agricultural research and the analysis of agricultural economy” (CREA). She is also involved as Management Committee member and Chair of WG4 in the COST Action CHARME ”Harmonising standardisation strategies to increase efficiency and competitiveness of European life-science research”.