Date of birth: 15 May 1983
Nationality: Italian
Moreno Colaiacovo, PhD
Email: mygenomixxx@gmail.com
Computational biologist
Work experience
16th October 2013 - ...
1st May 2012 – 31st July 2012
Bioinformatician
Visiting student
Genomnia srl- Lainate, Italy
ETH Zürich - Basel, Switzerland
He develops and applies computational pipelines for diverse
bioinformatics tasks according to the company needs. In the
context of the services on sale, he analyses short RNA and
whole transcriptome data, performing raw data processing,
differential analysis and functional characterization.
In the context of his PhD course, he spent three months
working at the ETH Zürich institute in Basel,
Switzerland. He designed and simulated regulatory
circuits (e.g. logic gates, FFLs) for synthetic biology
applications.
1st April 2009 – 15th October 2013
1st March 2008 – 31st December 2008
Computational biologist
Post-graduate student
CRA-GPG - Fiorenzuola d’Arda, Italy
Genopolis – Milan, Italy
He developed and applied computational pipelines for the
prediction, functional characterization and quantification of
plant microRNAs. He is involved in the international project
for wheat genome sequencing.
In the context of the thesis project for his master degree
he analyzed microarray data, and developed a pipeline
for the prediction of gene regulatory circuits starting
from microarray data related to mouse dendritic cells.
Higher education
Jan, 2010 – Feb, 2013
PhD in
Complex systems
in medicine and life sciences
University of Turin, Italy
Thesis title: “Computational analysis of miRNAmediated regulation systems in plants”
Sept, 2006 – Dec, 2008
Master of Science in
Bioinformatics
University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy
Thesis title: “Analysis of regulatory networks for
the definition of inflammatory phenotype in mouse
dendritic cells”
Final mark: 110/110 with honours
Sept, 2002 – Mar, 2006
Bachelor of Science in
Biotechnology
University of Insubria, Varese, Italy
Thesis title: “Transformation of peach rootstock
GF677 (P.persica x P.amygdalus) mediated by
Agrobacterium tumefaciens”
Final mark: 109/110
Scientific publications
Colaiacovo, M. & Faccioli, P. "Approaches to plant microRNAs identification of microRNAs and their targets using
bioinformatic tools" in Poltronieri P., Burbulis N., Fogher C.
(Editors). From plant genomics to plant biotechnology.
Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge, UK (2013).
Marchisio, M.A. et al. Modular, rule-based modeling for the
design of eukaryotic synthetic gene circuits. BMC Systems
Biology 7, 42 (2013).
Colaiacovo, M. et al. On the complexity of miRNA-mediated
regulation in plants: novel insights into the genomic
organization of plant miRNAs. Biology Direct 7, 15 (2012).
Colaiacovo, M. et al. A survey of microRNA length variants
contributing to miRNome complexity in peach (Prunus persica
L.). Frontiers in Plant Science 3, 165 (2012).
Colaiacovo, M. & Grimaldi, K.A. Personal genetics, the
european regulations maze and the way out. Personalized
Medicine 9, 515-522 (2012).
Vitulo, N. et al. First survey of the wheat chromosome 5A
composition through a next generation sequencing approach.
PLoS ONE 6, e26421 (2011).
Colaiacovo, M. et al. A computational-based update on
microRNAs and their targets in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.).
BMC Genomics 11, 595 (2010).
Autorizzo il trattamento dei miei dati personali ai sensi del Decreto Legislativo 30 giugno 2003, n. 196.
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Teaching activity
Oral communications
May 6-10, 2013
Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy
SIGA course: “Metodi ed applicazioni di informatica
per l’analisi di dati biologici” (BioPython module)
Jan 17th, 2012
University of Modena Reggio Emilia, Italy
Colaiacovo M. et al. "miRNA-mediated regulatory
circuits in peach: computational identification and
dynamic simulation with a synthetic biology
approach" 56th SIGA Annual Congress, Perugia 17-20
September 2012.
Awards
Seminar: “The next-generation sequencing
revolution in plant genomics”
Apr 14th, 2011
Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy
Lesson: “Identificazione di microRNA da dati di
next-generation sequencing”
Winner of an EMBO short term fellowship starting on
1st May, 2012 for the project: “Computational
analysis of regulatory network motifs involving
transcription factors and microRNAs”. The work was
carried out at the Compuational Systems Biology
group - ETH Zürich, Basel, Switzerland.
Bioinformatics courses
Computational skills
May 6-10, 2013 – Salsomgaggiore, Italy
SIGA Course: “Metodi ed applicazioni di
informatica per l’analisi di dati biologici”
(UNIX and Python modules)
Operative systems: Windows, Unix
Oct 13, 2012 – Lodi, Italy
European Workshop in “Genomics
Research and Molecular Diagnostics”
Bioinformatics softwares: Fastqc, Prinseq, Skewer, Tophat,
Bowtie, Cufflinks, HT-seq (NGS analysis); Blast, ClustalW
(sequence alignment); David, AgriGO (functional
characterization); ProMoT, COPASI, Cytoscape (network
analysis); mFold, psRNAtarget, miRDeep, NOVOMIR
(miRNA analysis)
for
June 13-24, 2011 – MIT, Cambridge (MA),
USA
NECSI Summer school in Complex Systems
Sept 20-24, 2010 – Dobbiaco, Italy
VI International School in
Computation and Information
Reviewer activity
Biology,
Bioinformatics databases: NCBI, EMBL, BioMart, miRBase,
miRTarBase, ApprisDB
Programming/scripting languages: Perl, BioPerl, Python,
BioPython, R, R-Bioconductor, Bash
Softwares/languages for
Drupal, Wordpress, Html
Language skills
BMC Genomics
PLoS ONE
Italian (first language)
GPB
IJAB
English (very good)
Plant Physiology
OMICS
French (basics)
CEJB
webdesign:
Dreamweaver,
Society membership
Italian Society of Agricultural
Genetics (SIGA)
Science Writers in Italy
association (SWIM)
Other activities
Science communication: Since 2010 he has been writing a genomics blog (myGenomix) in Italian, where he covers
news and scientific papers dealing with biotechnology and the personal genetics business. Since February 2012 he
has been working as a science writer for Italian magazines and websites, such as Wired, Galileo, Tecn’è, Strade
and iMille. Since 2010 he has been Italian editor for the international science blogging platform Research
Blogging.
Scientific consultancy: Since February 2012 he has been working in collaboration with personal genetics
companies such as Eurogenetica and Sorgente Genetica. His work was mainly devoted to revising reports and
writing scientific text as well as illustrative material for the services on sale.
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