Global Webinar Series
Learning about the function of sleep from Drosophila
with Giorgio F. Gilestro - Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London
We are delighted to welcome Giorgio F. Gilestro to talk about the function of sleep. Giorgio will be discussing what flies have taught us in these years about sleep and its functions and will be presenting a new model of sleep function that frames our current way of thinking about sleep.
About Giorgio Gilestro
Giorgio F. Gilestro
I was born in 1977 in Turin, Italy. From 1996 to 2002 I studied Medical Biotechnology at the University of Turin, working full time in the laboratory as an undergraduate intern. My initial research work was on the genetics of metastasis and, in particular, on exploring whether genes that promote and regulate axonal growth during the development of the nervous system could, later on, be hijacked by cancer cells to drive their malignant metastatic activity (they can!).
After graduating, I left Italy and joined the laboratory of Barry Dickson at the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna. There, I studied the early stages of neuronal development in the Drosophila embryo. The IMP was – and still is – a highly multidisciplinary and ambitious research institute and provided a terrific environment for my scientific growth. You can read my recollection of those times in this alumnus profile, kindly created by the IMP.
I graduated with my Ph.D. in September 2006 and decided that I would continue my research activity on sleep, using flies as the animal model. I immediately joined the laboratory for research on sleep and consciousness directed by Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi at the University of Madison, Wisconsin – one of the lead laboratories in the field. My postdoc in Madison was rather short and productive. I left the lab after 2 & 1/2 years, in Spring 2009, with a couple of influential discoveries and a new baby. In June 2009 took a year-long career break / paternity leave.
In October 2010 I moved to London and started my own research group at Imperial College in London, first as an Independent Research Fellow and, since October 2012, as Lecturer.
Our laboratory is part of the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, in the South Kensington Campus right in the very heart of London. Imperial currently ranks 8th in the University World league, and 3rd in the UK. Our Department was judged by Times Higher Education to be the top-ranked university Department in the UK for research intensity in Biological Sciences. Find more about the facilities of the laboratory and those of the Department.