Pietro Spitali

Pietro Spitali is currently an assistant professor at the Human Genetics Department of the Leiden University Medical Center. He has worked in the field of muscular dystrophies and especially Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) since 2003. His graduate work focused on the pre-clinical development of antisense oligonucleotides mediated exon skipping in DMD. After obtaining his PhD in Ferrara in 2010 he moved to the DMD genetic therapy group headed by Dr. Annemieke Aartsma-Rus at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, first as post-doc researcher and since 2014 as assistant professor. His work focuses on the identification of –omic biomarkers in patients affected by muscular dystrophies and especially Duchenne. Pietro has authored >50 publications in leading journals. His work has been funded by patients charities such as the Prinses Beatrix Spierfonds, the Association française contre les myopathies (AFM), Dutch Duchenne Parent Project and PPMD as well by EU projects. He was involved in the FP7 funded Bio-NMD, SCOPE-DMD and NeurOmics projects and he is work package leader in the H2020 BIND consortium. He has been a member of COST Action BM1207 (www.exonskipping.eu). Pietro is an active reviewer for prestigious journals and funding agencies.