Fabiana Corsi-Zuelli

Profile photo of Fabiana Corsi-Zuelli
Fabiana Corsi-Zuelli, BSN, MSc, PhD student in Neuroscience (Immunopsychiatry) at the University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, Brazil. Fabiana is interested in the interconnection between the immune and central nervous systems, trying to disentangle immune mechanisms of psychosis. She investigates the interplay between immune dysregulation and environmental factors in psychosis, first-degree siblings, and community controls supervised by Prof. Cristina Del-Ben. Fabiana completed her MSc in Neuroscience in 2019 with a period of research at King's College London with Prof Valeria Mondelli, studying the interplay between early-life stress, immune mechanisms, and psychosis. During her PhD in São Paulo, she investigated the moderating effect of inflammation on the cannabis-psychosis association. She is also working on the role of inflammation within the psychosis continuum and how this may be relevant for transdiagnostic symptoms. Another topic she is interested in is the interaction between the adaptive and innate immune systems. She is particularly interested in Treg-related mechanisms and the intersection with the brain, body, and environment that may be relevant to psychosis development. She has been studying and writing about it with her mentor Prof. Deakin (University of Manchester), with whom she developed the Treg-hypothesis of psychosis. Currently, she is doing part of her PhD at the University of Birmingham in the lab of Prof Rachel Upthegrove, working on the immunological aspects for the Psychosis Immune Mechanisms Stratified Medicine Study (PIMS; https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FS037675%2F1), a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial testing the effect of a single dose of Tocilizumab (IL-6 receptor inhibitor) in psychosis patients with immune dysregulation. She is conducting research with peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to identify distinct immunophenotypes of psychosis. Fabiana receives national and international Fellowships from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and has received prestigious awards in recognition of her work from distinguished societies, including the Society for Biological Psychiatry, the Schizophrenia International Research Society, the British Association for Psychopharmacology, the International Brain Research, and the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies.

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Cellular immune phenotypes of depression: a gateway to precision medicine 

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In her debut blog, Fabiana Corsi-Zuelli summarises a recent systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the role of peripheral immune cells in depression, with a focus on implications for future immunotherapy trials.

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