Meet the Finalists of the 2026 ISSNAF Young Investigator Embassy of Italy Award
Established in 2020, this year’s edition recognizes outstanding contributions from Italian researchers in the USA active in the broad field of biotechnologies, recognizing groundbreaking research that advances our understanding of molecules, cells, tissues, organisms, processes and their application to wide-ranging fields including healthcare, agriculture, environment and industry.@sa
We are excited to congratulate the exceptional finalists for this year's edition:
Emma Dann
Sara Molinari
Marco Orecchioni
The winner will be announced on November 12 at the ISSNAF 2026 Annual Event in Washington, D.C. The Jury, chaired by Napoleone Ferrara (University of California San Diego), also includes Giovanni Paternostro (Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute) and Sara Trifari (T-ONE Therapeutics).
Learn more about the three finalists and their researches.
EMMA DANN
Emma Dann studied Bioechnology at the University of Trento (IT) and did her MSc training between Utrecht University (NL) and EMBL Heidelberg (DE). She did her PhD at the University of Cambridge, working between the groups of Sarah Teichmann at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and John Marioni at the EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute, where she developed methods for detection of disease-associated cells in scRNA-seq data and applied them to understand immune cell variation in health and disease. She is now a Helen Hay Whitney and EMBO postdoctoral fellow working with Jonathan Pritchard at Stanford University and Alex Marson at the Gladstone Institute of Genomic Immunology. There she works on experimental genetic perturbations in primary immune cells to understand how natural genetic variation shapes cellular variation. She is also part of the core team of the scverse consortium of foundational tools for analysis of omics data in life sciences, where she works on governance and community initiatives.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-dann-566945125/?isSelfProfile=true https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=J2NQ29wAAAAJ&view_op=list_works https://emdann.github.io
Research Focus
A complete understanding of immune disease biology would enable broadly effective therapies and patient stratification based on shared disease mechanisms. Single-cell profiling of patient tissues captures cellular changes in diseased tissues in detail, and genetic association studies capture causal links between genes and human traits. Neither tells us which molecular pathways connect the two.
Her research addresses this gap by using experimental perturbations as a bridge between human genetics and cellular variation. She works closely with experimentalists on the design and analysis of massive-scale CRISPR screens with single-cell readout (Perturb-seq) in primary immune cells. She led the analysis of the first genome-wide Perturb-seq screen in primary human CD4+ T cells, mapping how 12,000 genes regulate T cell programs across stimulation conditions, and demonstrated that these perturbation maps identify driver processes behind T cell states observed in human populations. In parallel, she develops machine learning methods that jointly model perturbation responses and genetic effects on complex traits. These identify the molecular gene programs that explain genetic associations with immune phenotypes, and the upstream regulators controlling them.
This work traces pathogenic processes from genetic variation to disease-associated cell states, and nominates the cellular phenotypes worth targeting therapeutically.
About Her When Emma was in high school she wanted to be a scientist because she watched too much SuperQuark. She decided to study biology over physics or maths because she didn't want to spend all day in front of a computer, only to end up becoming a computational biologist.
SARA MOLINARI
Dr. Sara Molinari is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a pioneer in programming bacteria to build living materials. During her Ph.D. at Rice University, she developed a system for asymmetric cell division in Escherichia coli that produces genetically distinct daughter cells, opening a path to specialized roles within bacterial populations. Her doctoral research was supported by DARPA’s Engineered Living Materials program.
As a postdoctoral researcher, she led the development of the first de novo, centimeter-scale living material grown from engineered bacteria. Her team designed a protein matrix that enables cells to self-assemble across four orders of magnitude, with mechanical properties and catalytic activity that can be tuned genetically.
Today, her lab combines synthetic biology, materials science, and protein engineering to design programmable living materials for applications in healthcare, biomanufacturing, and bioremediation. Dr. Molinari received a five-year NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award in 2025. She was selected for the 2022 Distinguished Young Scholar Seminar, the 2022 BME UNITE Future Faculty program, and the SynBYSS Rising Star seminar series, and is a member of Sigma Xi.
Research Focus
Bacteria shape human and animal health, plant growth, aquatic ecosystems, and even geological formations. Synthetic biology can equip them with functions that benefit people and the environment. Yet engineered bacteria often struggle to survive and work outside the lab, limiting their potential to fight pathogens or deliver therapies in the body, support plant growth in soil, or break down plastics in waterways.
Dr. Molinari draws inspiration from biofilms, which concentrate bacteria where they are needed, protect them, and help them persist in challenging environments. By bringing these advantages into living materials with custom physical and biological properties, her lab aims to strengthen what engineered bacteria can accomplish.
The potential applications span healthcare, environmental remediation, and biomanufacturing. Dr. Molinari envisions living coatings that degrade polluting waste, including plastics; probiotic alternatives to antibiotics; and more efficient ways to manufacture valuable products. Her goal is to help engineered bacteria work where they could make the greatest difference.
About Her
Before joining the University of Maryland, Dr. Molinari studied in Perugia, Milan, Houston, and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Moving among places and research communities has shaped her collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to science. She values the connections that bring international scientists together and welcomes opportunities to exchange ideas across disciplines and borders. She speaks four languages and has two rescue dogs. Despite her Italian roots, she drinks only American coffee!
MARCO ORECCHIONI
Marco Orecchioni, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and a faculty member of the Immunology Center of Georgia at Augusta University. Originally from Sardinia, Italy, he received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Sassari, where he studied the interactions between nanomaterials and the immune system. He subsequently moved to the United States for postdoctoral training at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology where his research focused on macrophage biology and cardiovascular inflammation and identify the expression of unconventional sensory receptors, particularly olfactory receptors expressed by macrophage and found the function in cardiovascular disease.
His laboratory investigates how unconventional sensory receptors, particularly olfactory receptors expressed by immune cells, regulate macrophage function in cardiovascular disease and cancer. His research has contributed to establishing olfactory receptors as previously unrecognized regulators of macrophage biology and inflammation.
Dr. Orecchioni has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, including work in Science, Nature Immunology, Nature Communications, and Cardiovascular Research. His research has been supported by the American Heart Association, and recently by the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award to investigate how myeloid olfactory receptors can be harnessed to reprogram tumor immunity.
Research Focus
Marco Orecchioni’s research explores an unexpected question: can immune cells “smell” their environment? His laboratory studies olfactory receptors, receptors best known for detecting odors in the nose, that are also expressed by monocytes and macrophages, immune cells central to inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
His work demonstrated that these receptors can recognize metabolites generated by oxidative stress, and potentially by diet, and the microbiome, translating chemical cues in the tissue environment into changes in immune-cell behavior. His research identified the olfactory receptor Olfr2, and its human counterpart OR6A2, as a sensor of the lipid-derived metabolite octanal that regulates macrophage inflammation and atherosclerosis. His laboratory is now investigating a broader repertoire of olfactory receptors and their functions in cardiovascular disease and cancer, including their ability to shape anti-tumor immunity. This research reveals a largely unexplored sensory system used by immune cells to interpret their microenvironment. Because olfactory receptors belong to the highly druggable G protein-coupled receptor family, understanding these pathways could uncover new therapeutic strategies for inflammatory diseases and cancer.
https://www.augusta.edu/centers/immcg/marco-orecchioni-lab.php https://www.linkedin.com/in/marco-orecchioni/en
About Him
Marco Orecchioni is an Italian scientist originally from Sardinia who has built his research career between Italy and the United States. Passionate about interdisciplinary research and mentoring young scientists, he actively promotes international scientific collaborations. He participates in European-funded research initiatives, including the Marie Skłodowska-Curie MX-MAP project, collaborating with the University of Padua and international partners to advance biomedical research and researcher mobility. He strongly values strengthening scientific ties between Italy and the United States, fostering knowledge exchange, and creating opportunities for students and early-career researchers to gain international experience and develop innovative research projects.
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