Meet our team
Scientific Director
Alberto Magi is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Florence. Since 2021, he has served as Scientific Director of the COMputational BIomediciNE Laboratory (COMBINE Lab), an interdisciplinary research unit involving four university departments. His research focuses on computational genomics, with particular emphasis on developing algorithms that exploit next- and third-generation sequencing technologies to detect structural variants, map homozygous regions, identify chromosomal abnormalities, and perform integrated genomic and epigenomic profiling in rare diseases and cancer.
Adjunct Professor
Roberto is a molecular biotechnologist with a PhD in Information Engineering, currently a senior researcher at the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine at the University of Florence. His expertise lies in genomic informatics and single-cell omics, with a focus on integrating scRNA-seq, scATAC-seq, CITE-seq, and spatial transcriptomics to explore gene regulatory networks in health and disease.
His early work was dedicated to cancer genomics, where he developed computational methods for the analysis of tumor sequencing data, investigating the functional impact of SNVs, InDels, and structural variants. During this period, he released tools such as Xome-Blender, a simulator for synthetic tumor samples, and PyPore, a framework for processing nanopore sequencing data, among the first to address long-read technologies at scale.
In recent years, he has increasingly focused on the biomedical applications of single-cell technologies, contributing to studies on immune function, kidney injury and repair, and diabetes. His work has advanced the understanding of cellular heterogeneity and regulatory dynamics in complex human tissues.
Post-Doc Researcher
Gianluca is a bioinformatician and researcher at AOU Meyer IRCCS in Florence, working in pediatric oncology with a focus on central nervous system tumors, particularly medulloblastoma and embryonal tumors. His work integrates Nanopore sequencing, methylation profiling on Illumina arrays (450K/EPIC/EPICv2), structural variant detection, and tumor classification. He is the developer of MAGIBU (Methylation Array Genomic Integration By UMAP), an in-house classifier for pediatric CNS tumors. Alongside research, he teaches biomedical engineering and biology at university level and mentors students. His expertise spans multi-omics pipelines, advanced statistical analysis, and the preparation of translational scientific manuscripts for peer-reviewed publication.
Post-Doc Researcher
Chiara is a biotechnologist with extensive international experience in microbiology and molecular genetics. Within the COMBINE Lab, she manages the essential "wet-lab" operations, specializing in high-quality DNA extraction and library preparation—the critical first steps for successful genomic sequencing and analysis.
She earned her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Queensland, Australia , and has worked in both academic and industrial settings, including a significant research role at GSK Vaccines.
Beyond the bench, Chiara is deeply passionate about bridging the gap between complex research and public understanding—a commitment that led her to complete a Master’s in Medical-Scientific Communication.
Post-Doc Researcher
Marta is a postdoctoral researcher with an interdisciplinary background spanning biotechnology, information engineering, and computational genomics. Her research centers on developing computational approaches that unlock the potential of long-read sequencing technologies, from epigenomic and epitranscriptomic profiling to the analysis of cell-free DNA. She has co-developed several of our open-source bioinformatics tools, including Gasoline, PoreMeth2, and Snakebite. Motivated by the challenge of translating complex molecular data into clinically actionable insights, she is particularly interested in advancing methods for the early detection, monitoring, and characterization of cancer through liquid biopsy and long-read sequencing.
Research Associate
Andrea is a bioinformatician and biomedical engineer, with a background in Information Engineering and a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Florence. During his internship and thesis work, he developed software tools for the automation of NGS analysis pipelines, with a focus on third-generation sequencing data. Over the past two years, he has worked on software development in genomic and clinical contexts, contributing to the creation of a web application for CNV and ROH detection. He collaborates with the laboratory on bioinformatics projects applied to molecular diagnostics.
PhD Student
Vincenzo is a PhD candidate with a background in Biomedical Engineering. His research focuses on representation learning and developing multimodal machine learning models for biomedical data analysis. He specializes in methods for integrating heterogeneous sources, including genomics, single-cell data, and biomedical imaging, to extract informative representations from complex biological and clinical datasets. Currently, his work is oriented toward designing, implementing, and evaluating advanced computational approaches to support data-driven biomedical research.
Last update
10.06.2026