People

Dr. Leonardo Sacconi

Research Director at CNR
Leonardo Sacconi received a Master's degree in Physics in 2001 at the University of Florence. He, then, moved to Trento, where he obtained a Ph.D. in Physics. Visiting scientist at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, in the group of Watt W. Webb. There he developed an imaging method to optically record neuronal action potentials using non-linear microscopy. From 2005 to 2011 he started new research lines on functional imaging of neuronal networks at the European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS) in the group of Francesco S. Pavone. In 2011 he became Researcher at the National Institute of Optics of the National Research Council (INO-CNR). He is now a Research Director at the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the National Research Council (IFC-CNR) and principal investigator of the OptoCARD Lab, where he is developing innovative imaging methodologies to increase our understanding of cardiac physiology. In 2020 he also joined the Institute for Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine of the University Freiburg, Germany.

E-mail: leonardo.sacconi@cnr.it
Phone number: +39 055 275 8280

Prof. Elisabetta Cerbai

Full professor at UNIFI
Elisabetta Cerbai received a Master’s degree in Biology in 1984 and a PhD in Pharmacology in 1991 at the University of Florence. Visiting scientist at the University of Cologne (Germany, 1986-1987), she moved to the University of Ferrara as assistant professor and then to Florence as associate professor. Since 2005 she is full professor of Pharmacology and has a long-standing experience on cardiac cell electrophysiology, arrhythmogenic mechanism and excitation contraction coupling. At cellular and tissue level, and in animal models and human cardiac cells and tissue, including human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and engineered tissue.

E-mail: elisabetta.cerbai@unifi.it
Phone number: +39 055 275 8207

Dr. Gerard A. Marchal

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow
Gerard Marchal received the Master degree in Cardiovascular Research in 2015 at the VU University Amsterdam. That same year, he started as a PhD student at the Academic Medical Centre of the University of Amsterdam. In his dissertation he investigated various aspects of the cardiac sodium channel Nav1.5, demonstrating its impact on embryonic cardiac development, structural defects, and its role in atrial fibrillation. In addition, he focused on the modulation of targeted Nav1.5 trafficking to specific domains of cardiomyocytes. In 2021 he started a postdoctoral position as a researcher at the National Institute of Optics in Florence and in 2023 he won a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Clinical Physiology.

E-mail: gerritadammarchal@cnr.it
Phone number: +39 055 275 8280

Dr. Francesco Giardini

Research Fellow at IEKM
Francesco Giardini received his bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering in 2015 and his master's degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2018, both from the University of Florence. In his master's thesis, he developed software tools to reconstruct the 3D cytoarchitecture of cardiac tissue from microscopy images. In 2019, he received a short-term EMBO fellowship to visit Dr. Martin Bishop at the Cardiac Electro-Mechanics Research Group (CEMRG) at King's College London. In 2022, he received his PhD in Molecular Medicine from the University of Siena conducting experimental work in the OptoCARD Lab in Florence, Italy. He now has a Postdoc position at the IEKM, Freiburg, Germany. There, he works on 3D analysis and modeling tools based on high-resolution whole-heart reconstructions to study cardiac electrical function.

E-mail: francesco.giardini@unifi.it
francesco.giardini@uniklinik-freiburg.de
Phone number: +39 055 275 8280

Dr. Chiara Palandri

Research Fellow at CNR
Chiara Palandri obtained her Master's degree in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies at the University of Florence in 2016. One year later, she started her PhD programm in Molecular Medicine at the University of Siena, with a particular interest in in vivo and in vitro modelling of genetically determined cardiomyopathies for functional studies and drug screening on single cardiomyocytes. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2021 and subsequently took up a Post-Doc position in the manner of the REPAIRE-heart project, where she focused her efforts on the production of living human cardiac slices from human myocardial samples to test the biocompatibility of LCE-based contractile patches to restore cardiac function.

E-mail: chiara.palandri@unifi.it
Phone number: +39 055 275 8280

Dr. Giulia Arecchi

Research Fellow at CNR
Giulia Arecchi obtained her Master's Degree in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies in 2021, at University of Florence. That same year, she began her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the OptoCARD Lab, using polarized Second Harmonic Generation (pSHG) microscopy to explore structural alterations in cardiac myosin associated with inherited cardiomyopathies. Currently, she is a research fellow at the Institute of Clinical Physiology – National Research Council (IFC-CNR), where she employs random-access multiphoton microscopy to measure action potentials and intracellular calcium transients at multiple sites within the sarcolemma in both healthy and diseased cardiac multicellular preparations.

E-mail: arecchi@lens.unifi.it
Phone number: +39 055 275 8280

Valentina Romanelli

PhD Student at UNIFI
Valentina Romanelli received her Bachelor's degree in Medical Engineering from the University of Rome – Tor Vergata in 2021. She continued her studies at the Campus Bio-Medico University in Rome, where she obtained a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2024. During her time there, she began collaborating with the OptoCARD Lab for her master's thesis, focusing on the feasibility and initial construction of a panoramic full-optical platform for optically stimulating and manipulating the epicardium of an entire mouse heart. In 2024, she began her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the OptoCARD Lab in Florence, where she continues to work on refining the panoramic platform to enhance its usability for experiments and to develop software for the reconstruction and analysis of the collected data.

E-mail: valentina.romanelli@unifi.it
Phone number: +39 055 275 8280

Lorenzo Rezza

Scholarship at UNIFI
Lorenzo Rezza earned his Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering in 2022 from the Campus Bio-Medico University in Rome. He continued his academic journey at the same institution, completing a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2025. During his Master's thesis, he began collaborating with the OptoCARD Lab, focusing on the development of software for managing a full-optical panoramic platform. He is currently continuing his collaboration with the OptoCARD Lab, where he is working on optimizing the previously developed software and integrating additional components essential to the experimental procedure.

E-mail: lorenzo.rezza@unifi.it
Phone number: +39 055 275 8280

Long lasting collaborators

- Peter Kohl, University of Freiburg, Germany
- Eva Rog-Zielinska, University of Freiburg, Germany
- Callum Zgierski-Johnston, University of Freiburg, Germany
- Raffaele Coppini, University of Florence, Italy
- Laura Sartiani, University of Florence, Italy
- Cecilia Ferrantini, University of Florence, Italy
- Chiara Tesi, University of Florence, Italy
- Corrado Poggesi, University of Florence, Italy
- Francesco S. Pavone, European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy, Italy
- Leslie M. Loew, University of Connecticut Health Center, US
- Gil Bub, McGill University, Canada
- Alex Quinn, Dalhousie University, Canada
- Martin Bishop, King's College London, UK
- Marina Campione, CNR, Italy
- Tania Zaglia, University of Padova, Italy
- Marco Mongillo, University of Padova, Italy
- Michael Regnier, University of Washington, US
- Francesco Regazzoni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
- Francesco Lodola, University Milano Bicocca, Italy
- Marie Caroline Müllenbroich, University of Glasgow, UK
- Karin Sipido, KU Leuven, Belgium
- Alessio Gizzi, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Italy
- Leonardo Bocchi, University of Florence, Italy
- Iacopo Olivotto, University of Florence, Italy

Past Members:
- Claudia Crocini, PhD
- Samantha Cannazzaro, PhD
- Marina Scardigli, PhD
- Erica Lazzari, PhD
- Valentina Biasci, PhD
- Camilla Olianti, PhD

Meet the Team