Biography:

Luigi Amoretti earned his BS in Biological Sciences from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2017. Luigi started working at the Lucille Castori Center, now known as the Molecular Microbiome Facility (MMF), at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in September 2017 under his former PI, Dr. Eric Pamer. Luigi was originally hired to run the 16S Bacterial qPCR assay on thousands of DNA samples derived from patient stool samples to determine the absolute abundance of bacteria. He soon learned the core facility’s work pipeline, which involves the collection, biobanking, and processing of both inpatient and outpatient fecal samples for next-generation sequencing of bacterial DNA. Luigi is now a Research Assistant at MMF under the Van den brink lab serving as one of the most experienced technicians running the stool sample pipeline. Luigi has been involved in various projects such as, a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) clinical trial, characterization of Enterococcus strains derived from fecal samples for lactose dependency, and development of a qPCR assay for the detection and determination of the relative abundance of Enterococcus derived from fecal samples. Luigi became a part-time graduate student in January 2020 to pursue a Biotechnology Master’s of Science program at Northeastern University. Luigi hopes to translate his 5+ years of molecular microbiology laboratory skills and in-depth knowledge towards the development of novel biologics and therapies that combat infectious diseases in the realm of the biotechnology industry.

Highlights/ Projects:

• Graduate Summer Project with Dr. Jonathan Peled at MSKCC– Characterized the lactose dependency of Enterococcus strains isolated from patient fecal samples/Development of qPCR assay for the detection of Enterococcus DNA at the genus-level from patient samples to determine the relative abundance of Enterococcus (2022)
• Design of strain-specific primers for bacterial isolates from Dr. Eric Pamer’s bacterial isolate library/Development of PCR assay for detection of specific bacterial isolate strains (2019)

Education:

• Currently enrolled in a Biotechnology Master of Science program at Northeastern University (January 2020 – Current)
• Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences at University of Maryland, College Park (2013-2017)

Publications:

Peled, Jonathan U et al. “Microbiota as Predictor of Mortality in Allogeneic Hematopoietic-Cell Transplantation.” The New England journal of medicinevol. 382,9 (2020): 822-834. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1900623
https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1900623

Schluter, Jonas et al. “The gut microbiota is associated with immune cell dynamics in humans.” Nature vol. 588,7837 (2020): 303-307. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2971-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2971-8

Stein-Thoeringer, C K et al. “Lactose drives Enterococcus expansion to promote graft-versus-host disease.” Science (New York, N.Y.) vol. 366,6469 (2019): 1143-1149. doi:10.1126/science.aax3760
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax3760

Kim, Sohn G et al. “Microbiota-derived lantibiotic restores resistance against vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus.” Nature vol. 572,7771 (2019): 665-669. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1501-z
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1501-z

To view the entire listing of Luigi Amoretti’s co-authored publications, please visit his Google Scholar Profile: Click Here