Journal of Bone Research
Open Access

Benedetto Sacchetti

Biography

Dr. Benedetto Sacchetti is currently an Adjunct Professor and he works at Department of Hematology, Oncology and Molecular Medicine, Italian National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy. He obtained his Biology Degree in 2002 and his Ph.D. in Human Pathology in 2006 from the Sapienza University, Rome (Italy). He successfully completed his Postgraduate Certificate in Flow Cytometry (2006) from the University of Milan and his Postgraduate Specialty (2006-11) in Clinical Pathology and his Postgraduate Certificate in Psychoneuroimmunology (2014) from the Sapienza University, Rome (Italy).

Research Interest

His work focuses on skeletal stem cells found in the bone marrow, and on their role in human skeletal diseases. His goal is to understand mechanisms of disease using stem cells as models, and to identify potential therapies that use stem cells as tools. He is particularly committed to elucidating the nature, origin, and physiological function of skeletal stem cells (aka "mesenchymal" stem cells) with respect to bone and hematopoietic pathophysiology. His more recent work is directed at identifying and characterizing postnatal progenitors in the human bone marrow and skeletal muscle as subendothelial cells (see Sacchetti et al, Cell 2007; Dellavalle et al., Nature Cell Biology 2007), and to the definition of tissue-specific progenitors in microvascular niches in different tissues (Bianco et al Cell Stem Cell 2008); i) preclinical models of cell therapy and gene therapy both in vitro and in ad hoc generated murine models of disease, ii) models of cell therapy in bone and skeletal muscle diseases. A specific facet of this issue is represented by the role of skeletal stem cells in providing a niche for cancer cells homing to bone.