Personal Statement
Dr Marco Sciacovelli graduated from the University of Padova (Italy) in 2007 with a first-class master's degree in Pharmacy and then completed a PhD in Bioscience and Cellular Biology at the University of Padova in 2011 under the supervision of Prof Bernardi and Prof Rasola. His doctoral studies were focused on understanding the pro-tumorigenic role of the mitochondrial chaperone TRAP1 through regulation of the activity of Succinate Dehydrogenase (SDH) complex and intracellular succinate levels. After obtaining his PhD, he moved to Cambridge where he joined Dr Frezza’s laboratory at the MRC Cancer Unit in 2012 first as an MRC Career Development Postdoctoral Fellow and then in 2015 as a Research Associate after the unit joined the University of Cambridge. During the years of his postdoctoral training, he contributed to elucidating how the oncometabolite fumarate activates pro-oncogenic pathways through epigenetic and metabolic reprogramming in Fumarate Hydratase (FH)-deficient tumours and more recently, how the reprogramming of amino acid metabolism sustains the progression of Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (ccRCC). In 2022, he joined the University of Liverpool as a Tenure Track Fellow to start his independent research program. Here, the aim of his laboratory is to identify stage-specific metabolic vulnerabilities in colorectal cancer (CRC), focusing on how distinctive metabolic traits are selected in metastatic colorectal cancers (CRC) affecting different organs. Google scholar profile

Research Overview
Alterations of metabolism are a hallmark of cancer. It has been shown that tumours display a deep metabolic reprogramming, often orchestrated by activation of oncogenic signalling, that sustains the biosynthetic needs of cancer cells and their aberrant proliferation. Some of these alterations are shared by different tumour types while others are distinctive of specific tumour subtypes or stages of progression. In our laboratory, we are interested in identifying the key metabolic pathways reprogrammed at different stages of tumour progression, how they are orchestrated, their impact on the malignant features of cancer cells, uncovering the role of metabolites as signalling molecules in cancer.