Member
Rector’s Delegate for International Health Cooperation
Associate Professor of General Pathology University of Milan
stefania.recalcati@unimi.it
Stefania Recalcati obtained her MD in 1995 from the University of Milan. In 1999 she completed her training in Gastroenterology at the University of Milan and was licensed as a gastroenterology specialist. During the specialization program (1995-1999) she attended the Division of General Medicine, Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, IRCCS Policlinico Hospital, Milan; she also spent one year as Research Fellow at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, Epalinges/Lausanne. In 2003 she received her PhD in Gastroenterology from the University of Milan. From 2006 to 2016 she was Assistant Professor of General Pathology at University of Milan. She is currently Associate Professor in General Pathology at the University of Milan, and the head of the iron metabolism lab at the Department of Biomedical Science for Health, University of Milan. For the period 2024/2026, she has also been appointed Rector’s Delegate for International Health Cooperation.
Research interests
- Molecular regulation of iron metabolism:
- Studying the different expression of iron proteins in various populations of macrophages, thus contributing to dissect peculiar and specific functional roles of polarized macrophages in various pathological conditions. Her studies provided relevant information to understand the molecular basis of iron retention in macrophages during inflammation, an event involved in the pathogenesis of the anemia of chronic diseases.
- Her lab recently contributed seminal studies highlighting the key role of disrupted iron metabolism in cancer, for example, in cholangiocarcinoma development and progression.
- Less recently she also took part in studies regarding the modifications of iron metabolism under conditions of increased erythropoiesis and other pathological settings, such as oxidative stress.
- In the past she investigated and described the abnormal expression of iron-related proteins in hereditary hemochromatosis.