Enrico Petretto, PhD

Scientists at one time shared the title of natural philosophers, and indeed my passion for science begins early on with a fascination for nature and its wonders

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And here I am, a computational physical chemist with a passion for Complex Systems, Chaos Theory and Quantum Mechanics, who decided at some point to engage with the inherent complexity of human genetics, biology and drug discovery research

 

This "nonlinear" career path led me to develop a research program with a strong focus on Systems Biology

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I aim to understand how complex genetic information stored in our cells is decoded to generate the Gene Regulatory Networks and molecular pathways that, when perturbed, drive human disease processes

 

In my laboratory we integrate genetics and gene regulatory network analysis in an approach called Systems Genetics, to determine the consequences of key genes (or master genetic regulators) on functional pathways in disease, and ultimately identify new drug targets for therapeutic development

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Recently, we are most excited for the discovery of WWP2, a gene that regulates the extent of tissue fibrosis in patients with important heart conditions (e.g. dilated cardiomyopathy) - starting from this discovery we have also identified novel small molecule inhibitors, which are pursuing in our laboratory for    anti-fibrotic drug development

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