Federica Ricucci

Biography

Federica obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Applied Biology from the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg. For her bachelor’s thesis, conducted at Cube Biotech GmbH under the supervision of Dr. Philipp Hanisch, she focused on optimizing the expression and assembly of nanodisc proteins for the study of membrane proteins.

She subsequently pursued a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg. As part of her master’s thesis at the Institute for Functional Gene Analytics, in collaboration with the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and under the supervision of Prof. Oskar Schnappauf, she functionally characterized a novel homozygous proximal intronic splice variant in a patient with DNase II deficiency.

In September 2025, Federica joined the lab as a PhD student to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH). Her research focuses on signaling dysfunction in cytotoxic lymphocytes and its contribution to HLH pathogenesis, with the broader aim of advancing our understanding of the pathomechanisms driving immune dysregulation in this disease.