Francesca Telese, PhD
Principal Investigator
Postdoc in Neuroepigenetics, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego
PhD in Neuroscience, University of Naples Federico II
MS in Medical Biotechnology, University of Naples Federico II
ftelese@ucsd.edu
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Women in Health Science
Preclinical Addiction Research Consortium
Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program
Neuroscience Graduate Program
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
– Marie Curie
Francesca Telese is a first-generation college student who earned her PhD in 2007 at the University of Naples Federico II under the mentorship of Dr. Tommaso Russo. Here, she purified a neuronal transcriptional complex involved in mechanisms of neurodegeneration. After her PhD, Francesca moved from Italy to the United States to join Dr. Michael Geoff Rosenfeld’s group at the UC San Diego, where she completed her postdoctoral training in 2013 with the support of postdoctoral fellowships from the Italian Foundation for Cancer Research, Susan G. Komen Foundation, and John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation. Here, she worked on the role of nuclear receptors in cancer and the role of epigenetic regulation of learning and memory. She joined the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego as an Assistant Project Scientist from 2013 to 2016 and opened her independent laboratory in 2017. Francesca was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2023 in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego.
Francesca is the recipient of the Avenir Award in Genetics and Epigenetics of Substance Use, the UCSD Chancellor’s Research Excellence Scholarships, and the Early Career Achievement Award from the International Behavioral and Neural Genetics Society (IBANGS). She has been awarded multiple NIH grants to study gene regulatory mechanisms in substance use disorders.
At UC San Diego, Francesca is involved in teaching undergraduate and graduate students and has a leadership role in the Women in Health Sciences Committee (WiSH).
Outside the lab, Francesca enjoys traveling and the outdoors, often spending her free time hiking, camping, cycling or simply enjoying nature. Additionally, Francesca has a passion for espresso and baking.
