Camilla Bellone facts for kids

Camilla Bellone (born c. 1975) is an Italian neuroscientist and assistant professor in the Department of Basic Neuroscience at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland. Bellone's laboratory explores the molecular mechanisms and neural circuits underlying social behavior and probes how defects at the molecular and circuit level give rise to psychiatric disease states such as Autism Spectrum Disorders.  

Early life and education

Bellone was born in Italy in 1975. Bellone studied pharmacology at the University of Milano in 1998, and found a mentor in Monica Di Luca, a neuropharmacologist. She completed her Master's in Pharmacy. Bellone became fascinated by neuroscience and developed a passion for answering the many unknown questions about brain function. In Di Luca's lab, Bellone studied protein-protein interactions and signalling pathways in the postsynaptic compartment as well as the role of PSD-95 in neuronal stability and homeostasis.

Bellone stayed at the University of Milano to begin her graduate studies exploring the molecular biology and structural composition of the synapse.  Bellone realized that she wanted to go beyond protein-protein interactions and explore synaptic activity and dynamic function. Bellone reached out to Christian Lüscher at the University of Geneva because he was exploring synaptic plasticity and synaptic transmission. Lüscher accepted Bellone into his lab and the University of Milan continue to fund her PhD abroad, so Bellone moved to Geneva.

Bellone completed her PhD and joined the lab of Roger Nicoll at the University of California, San Francisco. Shortly after joining the Nicoll Lab, Bellone published a first author paper in Neuron exploring the trafficking of NMDA receptors in hippocampal pyramidal cells in newborn mice.

In 2007, Bellone returned to Switzerland planning to pursue a career in academia. From 2007 until 2011, Bellone worked in Lüscher's lab as a Maître Assistante where she began to transition from the mentored-phase of her career to an independent career.

Career and research

In 2010, Bellone was awarded the Ambizione Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, a grant meant to support young researchers in starting their own independent projects at Swiss higher education institutions. For Bellone, this grant helped her to transition towards an independent career in neuroscience.

In 2014, Bellone applied to the University of Lausanne to start her own lab. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, Bellone became an assistant professor in the Department of Fundamental Neuroscience at the University of Lausanne. Her lab at UNIL focused on understanding the development of the brain's reward circuitry, the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system, in mouse models. Using various techniques, both in vivo and ex vivo, Bellone explored how perturbations to this circuitry affect social motivation. Bellone's work aims to help understand the neural basis for complex social behaviors and how this circuitry might be implicated in psychiatric disorders characterized by aberrant social behaviors, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder. 

Bellone applied for a position back at the University of Geneva. She was offered a position in 2016 as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor to the Department of Basic Neuroscience at the University of Geneva. Bellone's lab at the University of Geneva continues to probe the dopaminergic neural circuits underlying social behavior in mice as a means to better our understanding of how dysfunction in these circuits may lead to psychiatric and neurodevelopmental diseases.

Bellone joined the 2016 NCCR-SYNAPSY project, an initiative started in 2010 to understand the synaptic bases of mental diseases by bringing together basic scientists with clinical scientists in an effort to create translational collaborations. Bellone collaborates closely with psychiatrists and clinical scientists to inspire translational research surrounding ASD.

Bellone is on the editorial board for the European Journal of Neuroscience, a Reviewer for Nat. Neurosci., J. Neuroscience, Neuroscience, Addiction Biology, Neural Plasticity, Frontiers, and PNAS, on the editorial board for Scientific Reports, responsible for the unit “Comment notre environnement influence-t-il la prise de drogue?” Brain week at the University of Geneva, a Member of the FENS-KAVLI network of excellence, on the Evaluation Committee (EvCo) for the SNSF Advanced Postdoc Mobility fellowships (domain Medicine), and a member of Society for Neuroscience, where she has spoken about career development for women in science through her talk “My Personal Journey From Synapse to Circuit to Behavior”.

Awards and honors

• 2004 Swiss Society for Neuroscience travel fellowship
• 2010 FENS/IBRO travel grant
• 2010 Ambizione grant from Swiss National Science Foundation
• 2012 Gertrude Von Meissner Foundation prize
• 2014 2014 Fondation du Prix Pfizer de la Recherche
• 2014 Professor Boursier Scholarship from Swiss National Science Foundation
• 2014-2018 FENS- KAVLI Scholar
• 2015 FENS-KAVLI network of Excellence