Elena Taverna

Elena Taverna is a Group Leader at the Neurogenomics Research Centre. Elena obtained her degrees in Biology at the University of Milan and she completed her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the CNR’s Neuroscience Institute in Milan. From 2006 to 2015, she worked as post-doc researcher in the group of Wieland Huttner at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, studying neural stem cells and brain development. From 2016 to March 2021 she was a Senior Staff Scientist and Project Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, working in the team lead by Svante Pääbo. At the MPI-EVA Elena studied the evolution of neuron structure and function in apes and humans. Following up on her previous work, she also developed a robot for the high throughput analysis of single neural stem cells in tissue. At the HT, Elena uses advanced robotics combined with multimodal analysis paradigm to understand brain development and evolution at the single cell level.