Cell scientist to watch – Francesca Bottanelli

ABSTRACT Francesca Bottanelli is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). Francesca graduated in Plant Biotechnology from the University of Milan (Italy), followed by a PhD in the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds (UK), where she developed her interest in intracellular organisation and microscopy under the supervision of Jürgen Denecke. For her postdoctoral studies, Francesca joined James Rothman's lab at Yale School of Medicine (USA), where she developed super-resolution microscopy approaches to study membrane trafficking processes. In 2018, Francesca established her own research group at the Freie Universität Berlin, combining gene editing and super-resolution technologies to investigate intracellular transport processes. We spoke with Francesca over Zoom to learn more about her career, her approach to scientific mentorship and her dream of starting a band.