Dr Barbara Vacca

Biography

In 2008, Barbara obtained her Master in Cell Biology and Neurobiology from Paris 7. On this occasion, she worked on the regulation of intracellular vesicular trafficking in Thierry Galli’s group. Then Barbara joined Andre Le Bivic’s group in Marseille for a PhD (2008-2012; IBDM) during which she highlighted the role of a cytoskeletal protein on apico-basal polarity in Caco-2/TC7 cells.

Barbara moved to London for a post-doc in Karl Matter’s group (UCL). Her work focused on understanding the role of tight junctions in vitro and in vivo. She showed the importance of signalling through tight junction in eye and neural crest development in Xenopus laevis. Finally, Barbara briefly worked on zebrafish and mechanotransduction in Masazumi Tada’s group (UCL) before joining our group in KCL in 2019. Now, Barbara’s work is focusing on deciphering the mechanisms underlaying highly dynamic morphogenetic processes in Xenopus and mouse.