Dr Ailin Leticia Buzzi

Since early in her career Ailin Leticia Buzzi has been interested in the fascinating world of developmental biology. For that reason, she undertook her PhD in Argentina, focusing on the study of the epigenetic influence during the development and specification of inner ear’s placodal cells, using the chick embryo as a vertebrate model. During that time, she also had the chance to participate in a project in the lab studying the epigenetic activation of neural genes.

Throughout her PhD, she developed an avid interest in understanding how cells make fate choices. In particular, she is intrigued by how a complex organ such as the inner ear, arise from a simple epithelium like the otic placode and how its progenitors mature and activate developmental programmes to differentiate into distinct cell types. For that purpose, for her postdoc she joined Prof. Andrea Streit's lab at King’s College London. In her lab, Ailin started working on the gene networks that control sensory placode formation, and has now focused in understanding the mechanisms that govern cell fate choice using a variety of state-of-the-art techniques such as single-cell-RNA-seq.