Michela Di Virgilio

Michela Di Virgilio, PhD, is a Professor in the field of Antibody Gene Diversification & Genome Integrity at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and senior group leader at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) in Berlin. She received her doctorate from the University of Milan, Italy for work she performed in the lab of the geneticist and developmental biologist Prof. Jean Gautier at Columbia University, NYC, USA. As a postdoctoral fellow with the immunologist Prof. Michel C. Nussenzweig at The Rockefeller University, NYC, she investigated repair mechanisms in B cells, the antibody-producing cells of the immune system. In the field of DNA repair, her results are considered groundbreaking. Prof. Di Virgilio’s own group “Genome Diversification & Integrity” investigates how B cells ramp up the immune defense, and which molecular processes help them modify their DNA so effective antibodies can be created. Since 2017, she has been the Speaker of the Helmholtz initiative “Immunology & Inflammation,” a consortium involving 23 labs from five Helmholtz Centers, which she has contributed to launch. She has received numerous awards such as an “ERC Starting Grant” and a “First-time Professorial Appointment of Excellent Women Scientists”.