Prof Carmen Faso

Carmen Faso was born in Rome (Italy). From 1996 to 2003 she pursued her BSc and MSc in Biological Sciences at the Roma Tre University (IT). She completed her doctorate under the supervision of Professor Wilhelm Gruissem at the ETH Zurich and received her title (Dr. rer. nat.) in 2008. After a first postdoctoral fellowship at the Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University (USA), in 2010 she joined Professor Adrian Hehl’s molecular parasitology group at the Institute of Parasitology of the University of Zurich, first as postdoctoral fellow and then as senior research associate. Here, she unraveled molecular mechanisms involved in parasite cyst formation, growth and nutrition. In 2018, Dr Faso was awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation PRIMA grant to start her own research group at the University of Bern. Her research focus is on protein trafficking in parasitic protists, with an emphasis on mechanisms of unconventional protein secretion.