
Dr Baggiolini, a native of Malcanton, was born and raised in Ticino, where she graduated from the Liceo Cantonale in Lugano in 2006. She completed her BSc and MSc in Biology at ETHZ and her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Zurich. In 2017 she moved to New York to complete her postdoctoral training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a leading cancer centre in the United States.
When a year ago, the IOR announced an international competition to hire a group leader for a new research group within the solid tumour programme, Dr Baggiolini was chosen from 42 researchers who had announced themselves from all over the world. The choice had fallen on her, not only because of the extremely brilliant results already achieved in just a few years but also because she could bring from New York to Bellinzona her experience in new technologies, from which the other research groups will also benefit. Soon the IOR will open a new international call for applications to recruit another researcher to lead a new research group, this time in the area of hemato-oncology, that is, blood system-related cancers. Thus, with this recent acquisition, the programme will soon have three research groups, each consisting of 10-12 researchers. All this again demonstrates the current vitality of the IOR and, in general, of the BIOS+ group, which is boosting the life sciences research cluster in Bellinzona.