3 December 2024 – Claudia Keller-Valsecchi feels privileged to have a job she is passionate about, where every day in the lab brings new discoveries. As a group leader at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Mainz, Germany, and soon-to-be assistant professor at the University of Basel’s Biozentrum, Switzerland, she investigates the genetic foundations of sex differences in biology. Her research, spanning organisms from malaria mosquitoes and brine shrimp to humans, examines how genes are regulated differently in males and females — a phenomenon that influences disease and evolution.
Keller-Valsecchi’s interest in sex chromosome research began during her postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, where she studied the interplay between non-coding RNA and chromatin in fruit flies. Upon transitioning to a group leader position, her lab was among the first to uncover a pathway mediating X chromosome dosage balancing in malaria mosquitoes, revealing a new mechanism of sex chromosome regulation. Her team also investigates how environmental factors shape male and female biology in non-model organisms.
As part of the EMBO Young Investigator Programme, Keller-Valsecchi looks forward to interdisciplinary collaborations. “Being part of the EMBO Young Investigator Programme will allow me to think beyond my field and come up with ideas that cross disciplines,” she says. She also aims to integrate ecological perspectives and artificial intelligence into her research to drive innovation in non-model organism studies. “Lab exchanges with other programme members will give me and my team the opportunity to gain expertise in technologies that we would have never imagined pursuing on our own,” she explains.
