
Immunology, Transplantation and Infectious diseases
Innate immunity and tissue remodelling

Patrizia Rovere Querini leads an active research group composed of both clinical and basic researchers. Their goal is to transform medicine into a practice based on the interpretation of real-world data and scientific evidence. The laboratory has for long focused on skeletal muscle from an inflammatory perspective, utilizing preclinical models, studying disease mechanisms, and conducting clinical trials and analyses. The primary research interest lies in studying the mechanisms that link tissue damage to low-grade inflammation in complex chronic diseases, particularly metabolic syndrome and pathological aging.
Research activity
Core Project
The laboratory’s main research objective is to define the molecular mechanisms underlying sarcopenic obesity (SO), an essential step for developing therapies to prevent its onset.
SO is a geriatric syndrome wherein sarcopenia, typically occurring with aging, is associated with obesity. As a confluence of two epidemics, SO synergistically heightens the risk of complications from both conditions, with a dramatic impact on morbidity and mortality. Critical mechanisms underlying the vicious interplay of fat and skeletal muscle include intra- and intercellular inflammatory responses, mitochondrial dysfunction, altered autophagy, and epigenetic modifications, but their molecular interplay remains elusive.
Research and clinical efforts converge in a multidisciplinary team working both on a murine model of aging-related sarcopenic obesity and on a comprehensive outpatient data collection of sarcopenic geriatric patients.
In both models, advanced flow cytometry is combined with imaging to characterize circulating leukocytes in terms of immune phenotype, metabolic features, and senescence. Circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs) are also characterized, identifying their cellular origin and content.
Adipose and skeletal muscle tissues are sampled and analyzed using unbiased multi-layer phenotypic characterization (RNA-seq, proteomics, metabolomics), combined with targeted evaluation of senescence programs. The results are correlated with disease presence and severity to draw potential causal links and identify prognostic markers with the aim of finding factors capable of delaying aging in the murine model.
From a clinical perspective, a cohort of outpatient participants has been monitored to study sarcopenia trajectories over several years (since 2017). Additionally, muscle and fat tissue samples are characterized, and blood samples are collected from surgical patients. The outcomes from clinical and research activities contribute to the work of the Centro di Eccellenza di Salute Metabolica at the San Raffaele Hospital.
The laboratory’s research on sarcopenic obesity is part of the Italia Domani PNRR Mad project.
Other Projects
The research team is actively involved in various scientific projects designed to enhance the field of internal medicine.
The PNRR Age-it project analyzes factors that contribute to successful aging. The laboratory specifically focuses on markers and comparative data from Spoke 2, “Understanding the Biology of Aging”.
The PNRR D3 4Health project explores the application of advanced digital technologies (artificial intelligence algorithms, wearable devices and sensors, and network analysis) in managing five different diseases. The laboratory specifically investigates the use of digital twin technology for Type 1 diabetes within Spoke 3.
Based on the clinical activities of the Unità Operativa di Medicina Generale 2, the laboratory contributes to the network activities of Cris, the independent research center of the Società Italiana di Medicina Interna. The project's aim is to create a permanent registry of clinical data on a national basis in areas of high relevance and expertise for Internal Medicine, thereby contributing to the cultural evolution of clinical research.
In addition, the research team participates to the collaborative REPOSI study, which gathers data to monitor the clinical progression of elderly patients and develop a database accessible for analyses approved by the Ethics Committee.