Michele Azzolini

Lab member
2017 - 2022

Current position
Senior Researcher at Astra Zeneca, Sweden

I was born in Rovereto, a small town located in the middle of the Italian Alps. I cannot tell which was my favorite subject in school when I was a kid, but surely Biology was the one during high school. I so decided to leave my beloved Alps behind and move to Padova and a few years after to Parma to become a Biologist. My high school feelings for this discipline were right, I really liked it! Comparative anatomy, botanic, biochemistry, cell biology, everything was interesting! In a quest for another challenge, I also took the opportunity to do my master’s internship abroad, in the Netherland, as an Erasmus student. I do not hide that the beginning was a bit tough. Lack of sun, warm days, and (good) coffee were my biggest problems, but suddenly Dutch life turned out to be funny, the research project interesting and passion for biomedical research grew strong in me. I so went back to Padova, a city where the culture of Spritz and welcoming weather can cheer up the (sometimes) hard days of the PhD student life. Being a PhD student means many things, but most and foremost learning to do research, to formulate valid ideas and to test them, to learn from the senior and to teach to students, and, at least for me, to look for another chapter once the title is achieved. And here I am, Ruas lab at Karolinska Institutet, studying the molecular and metabolic adaptions of our cells to low oxygen conditions, with a special focus on folate metabolism. The outcome of my research can impact areas of common physiological interest, such as explaining the consequences and adaptions of high altitudes hiking or intense training. But also, my project can relate to pathological conditions such as strokes, cancer, and respiratory failure.