School of Biomedical Sciences

Dr Annalisa Paolino

Postdoctoral Research Fellow & Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of Biomedical Sciences
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In 2013, Annalisa successfully completed a bachelor degree in Medicine and Surgery (University of Insubria, Italy), with the highest possible final score of 110/110 summa cum laude. After completing her medical training, she joined the Italian Medical Council (Ordine dei Medici) as a registered general doctor in 2014. in 2015 she moved to Australia to start her PhD in mammalian brain evolution at The University of Queensland. She graduated from her PhD in 2019 and went on to do postdoctoral research with Dr Patricio Opazo and A/Prof Victor Anggono at The Queensland Brain Institute. 

Annalisa is now a postdoctoral research fellow with us, and her work involves understanding how the different timing (heterochrony) of developmental processes in brain development can cause dramatic changes in the final brain structure, both in the context of evolution as well as disease. In her spare time Annalisa loves going to the beach, traveling and spending time with her family.

Twitter: @AnnalisaPaolino

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2117-2819

UQ Researchers: http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/24690

Annalisa is part of the Suarez group which studies brain evolution and development, and the Fenlon Group which studies Cortical development, plasticity and evolution.

Researcher biography

I am a passionate neuroscientist, working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBMS, UQ).

I have always had a deep interest in Medicine and Biology, which brought me to first successfully complete a bachelor degree in Medicine and Surgery in 2013 (University of Insubria, Italy), and then a PhD in Neuroscience in 2019 (Queensland Brain Institute, QBI, UQ). My PhD investigated how the connections of the cerebral cortex develop and evolve in different animal species, with a specific focus on the plasticity of these connections in health and disease.

During my first Postdoctoral experience in the laboratories of Dr Opazo and A/Prof Anggono (QBI, UQ), I worked on a project involving cutting-edge live-cell imaging using a two-photon microscope to investigate how key molecules are distributed in the brain during neuronal plasticity, both in vitro and in vivo, followed by behavioural assays.

Thanks to this experience, I gained unique surgical, behavioural, and imaging expertise that I am now employing to answer questions of brain evolution and development in the laboratories of Dr Fenlon and A/Prof Suárez at SBMS. In my current position I am investigating how the different timing (heterochrony) of developmental processes in brain development can cause dramatic changes in the final brain structure, both in the context of evolution as well as disease.

Publications

Journal Articles (12)
Conference Paper (1)
Data Collection (1)
Thesis (1)

Journal Articles

Paolino, Annalisa, Haines, Elizabeth H., Bailey, Evan J., Black, Dylan A., Moey, Ching, García-Moreno, Fernando, Richards, Linda J., Suárez, Rodrigo and Fenlon, Laura R. (2023). Non-uniform temporal scaling of developmental processes in the mammalian cortex. Nature Communications, 14 (1) 5950, 1-17. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41652-5
Suárez, Rodrigo, Bluett, Tobias, McCullough, Michael, Avitan, Lilach, Paolino, Annalisa, Fenlon, Laura R., Goodhill, Geoffrey J. and Richards, Linda J. (2023). Cortical activity emerges in region-specific patterns during early brain development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Suárez, Rodrigo, Bluett, Tobias, McCullough, Michael H., Avitan, Lilach, Black, Dylan A., Paolino, Annalisa, Fenlon, Laura R., Goodhill, Geoffrey J. and Richards, Linda J. (2023). Cortical activity emerges in region-specific patterns during early brain development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120 (22) e2208654120, e2208654120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2208654120
Kozulin, Peter, Suárez, Rodrigo, Zhao, Qiong-Yi, Paolino, Annalisa, Richards, Linda J. and Fenlon, Laura R. (2022). Divergent evolution of developmental timing in the neocortex revealed by marsupial and eutherian transcriptomes. Development, 149 (3) dev200212. doi: 10.1242/dev.200212
Paolino, Annalisa, Fenlon, Laura R., Kozulin, Peter, Haines, Elizabeth, Lim, Jonathan W. C., Richards, Linda J. and Suárez, Rodrigo (2020). Differential timing of a conserved transcriptional network underlies divergent cortical projection routes across mammalian brain evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117 (19), 201922422-10564. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1922422117
Paolino, Annalisa, Fenlon, Laura R., Suárez, Rodrigo and Richards, Linda J. (2018). Transcriptional control of long-range cortical projections. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 53, 57-65. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2018.05.005
Suárez, Rodrigo, Paolino, Annalisa, Fenlon, Laura R., Morcom, Laura R., Kozulin, Peter, Kurniawan, Nyoman D. and Richards, Linda J. (2018). A pan-mammalian map of interhemispheric brain connections predates the evolution of the corpus callosum. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115 (38), 9622-9627. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1808262115
Paolino, Annalisa, Fenlon, Laura R., Kozulin, Peter, Richards, Linda J. and Suarez, Rodrigo (2018). Multiple events of gene manipulation via in pouch electroporation in a marsupial model of mammalian forebrain development. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 293, 45-52. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2017.09.004
Suarez, Rodrigo, Paolino, Annalisa, Kozulin, Peter, Fenlon, Laura R., Morcom, Laura R., Englebright, Robert, O'Hara, Patricia J., Murray, Peter J. and Richards, Linda J. (2017). Development of body, head and brain features in the Australian fat-tailed dunnart (Sminthopsis crassicaudata; Marsupialia: Dasyuridae); A postnatal model of forebrain formation. Plos One, 12 (9) e0184450, 1-18. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184450
Gobius, Ilan, Suarez, Rodrigo, Morcom, Laura, Paolino, Annalisa, Edwards, Timothy J., Kozulin, Peter and Richards, Linda J. (2017). Astroglial-mediated remodeling of the interhemispheric midline during telencephalic development is exclusive to eutherian mammals. Neural Development, 12 (1) 9, 9. doi: 10.1186/s13064-017-0086-1
Marsh, Ashley P. L., Heron, Delphine, Edwards, Timothy J., Quartier, Angelique, Galea, Charles, Nava, Caroline, Rastetter, Agnes, Moutard, Marie-Laure, Anderson, Vicki, Bitoun, Pierre, Bunt, Jens, Faudet, Anne, Garel, Catherine, Gillies, Greta, Gobius, Ilan, Guegan, Justine, Heide, Solveig, Keren, Boris, Lesne, Fabien, Lukic, Vesna, Mandelstam, Simone A., McGillivray, George, McIlroy, Alissandra, Meneret, Aurelie, Mignot, Cyril, Morcom, Laura R., Odent, Sylvie, Paolino, Annalisa, Pope, Kate ... Depienne, Christel (2017). Mutations in DCC cause isolated agenesis of the corpus callosum with incomplete penetrance. Nature Genetics, 49 (4), 511-514. doi: 10.1038/ng.3794
Paolino, Annalisa, Hussain, Tarique, Pavon, Antonio, Velasco, Maria Nieves, Uribe, Sergio, Ordonez, Antonio and Valverde, Israel (2017). NT-proBNP as marker of ventricular dilatation and pulmonary regurgitation after surgical correction of Tetralogy of Fallot: a MRI validation study. Pediatric Cardiology, 38 (2), 324-331. doi: 10.1007/s00246-016-1516-2

Conference Paper

Suarez, R., Paolino, A., Kozulin, P., Morcom, L., Fenlon, L. and Richards, L. (2015). Developmental scenarios for the evolutionary origin of the corpus callosum. 25th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for Neurochemistry Jointly with the 13th Meeting of the Asian Pacific Society for Neurochemistry in Conjunction with the 35th Meeting of the Australasian Neuroscience Society, Cairns, QLD Australia, 23-27 August 2015. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. doi: 10.1111/jnc.13188

Data Collection

Suarez, Rodrigo, Bluett, Tobias, McCullough, Michael, Avitan, Lilach, Paolino, Annalisa, Fenlon, Laura, Goodhill, Geoffrey and Richards, Linda (2023). Raw data for "Cortical activity emerges in region-specific patterns during early brain development. Suárez et al., PNAS 2023". The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.48610/5ccfb47

Thesis

Paolino, Annalisa (2019). Conserved and divergent mechanisms of cortical development across mammalian brain evolution. PhD Thesis, Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/uql.2019.401