Dr. Nicoletta Sacchi is a Distinguished Member and Professor of Cancer Genetics at the Roswell Park
Cancer Institute (RPCI) since 2003. Dr. Sacchi comes to RPCI from the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive
Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD where she was a Visiting Professor from 1998 to 2002.
She is a Faculty Member (Molecular Biology) of the Graduate Program in Molecular Medicine at the
School of Medicine, University of Milan.
Dr. Sacchi earned a magna cum laude degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Milan in 1973. She
completed postdoctoral training in different fields of human genetics at the School of Medicine of Milan,
the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands and the Roche Institute of Immunology, Basel,
Switzerland, where she enjoyed the mentorship of the Nobel Prize winner, Dr. George Köhler.
In 1982 she became a Research Instructor of Biochemistry at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine,
Bethesda, MD, and from 1984 to 1991 she was a Visiting Scientist at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
While studying the transcriptional regulation of oncogenes she developed together with Dr. Piotr
Chomczynski, the classic "Single Step Method for RNA Isolation" (1987) which has dramatically advanced
the whole field of RNA-based technologies and the discovery of regulatory RNAs. In the early nineties, Dr.
Sacchi was one of the first geneticists who demonstrated the potential of the emerging human genome
project for the advancement of cancer genetics by identifying the molecular lesion of a common human
leukemia, for which stemmed a method for the rapid and ultrasensitive detection of leukemic cells. At the
Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Sacchi’s research focused on epigenetic mechanisms of gene silencing in
breast tumorigenesis, and the development of aberrantly methylated genes as markers of breast malignancy.
Her current basic research focuses on the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on chromatin-mediated
gene transcription; novel pathogenic mechanisms of transcriptional repression / activation; epigenetic
mechanisms and chromatin remodeling in normal and cancer cells.
Dr. Sacchi is recipient of grants and awards from several funding agencies and foundations, including the
NCI, the DOD, the Susan Komen Foundation, the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation, the AROCC
Foundation, the AIRC (Italy), the MIUR (Italy), the Cariplo Foundation (Italy). She served as ad hoc
reviewer for the NIH-NCI, and is a member of the Panel of Genetics, Genomics, and Systems Biology of
the European Research Council (ERC).
Dr. Sacchi has published over 110 peer reviewed scientific articles, book chapters and reviews. She was
named as a “Highly Cited Researcher in Biology and Biochemistry,” by the Institute for Scientific
Information, Philadelphia, PA (2001). She received the honor of Commander of Merit from the President
of Italy in 2007.
She is a member of the American Society of Human Genetics, the American Association for Cell Biology,
the American Association of Cancer Research, and serves on the Editorial Board of the International
Journal of Oncology, Cancer Genetics and Cytogenetics, Research Letters in Biochemistry, the Journal of
Cancer Epidemiology.