Monocyte Activation Test: an in vitro method to evaluate the pyrogenic content of human vaccines

Dr. Etna is a Resident Researcher in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Rome-Italy). She holds her Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology and Immunology in 2014 from University of Rome “Tor Vergata” working on the evasion mechanism exploited by Mycobacterium tuberculosis in subversion of host immune response and in particular, on the autophagy process in human primary cells. From 2013 to 2017, she obtained a fellow at Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Rome-Italy) for the identification of novel autophagy-regulated host targets to improve BCG vaccine immunogenicity. During this period, she also carried out a research training in the Unit of Cytokine Signaling at Pasteur Institute (Paris-France) for the characterization of the translatome of human dendritic cells infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. From 2017 she obtained a research contract at Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Rome-Italy) to optimize the Monocyte Activation Test (MAT) within the IMI2 VAC2VAC – Vaccine lot to vaccine lot comparison by consistency testing – project. She is currently the expert of MAT assay at Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Rome – Italy) for the batch release of vaccines for human use and in particular for the anti-meningococcal B vaccine. She has been actively involved in training activities on MAT for the Developing Country Manufacturers Network (DCVMN). She has been a member of the NC3Rs pyrogenicity testing focus group. In addition, her research activity focus on Immune-pathogenic mechanisms of infectious diseases and escaping strategies evolved by pathogens; transcriptional profiling of responses to infectious agents; immunotherapy of infectious diseases; development of alternative in vitro human cell-based methods to test vaccine potency and efficacy for the replacement of animal models; implementation of MAT to determine the pyrogenicity of vaccines. She is author of several scientific papers in international scientific journals and conference proceedings.