Valeria Sordi graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Milan in 2001. She worked with Prof Ezio Bonifacio at Technical University of Dresden, in Germany, where she got her PhD in 2011 with a thesis entitled “Pancreatic mesenchymal stem cells: biology, origin and potential for diabetes therapy”. She then worked as a post doc with prof Lorenzo Piemonti in the Beta Cell Biology Unit of Diabetes Research Institute at San Raffaele Hospital, in Milan, where she got a permanent position as Project Leader in 2015. VS's research activity has been entirely focused on diabetes, with a particular focus on stem cells for β cell replacement.