What happens when sperm meets the egg: new insights into the fertilization process- Dr. Luigia Santella, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Napoli, Italy
Abstract: Fertilization depends on the specific recognition between gametes and the binding of the sperm with the egg plasma membrane. Upon fusion, the fertilizing sperm triggers a spatiotemporal series of early and late structural and ionic changes in the cortex of the activated egg, which determine the success of the subsequent embryonic development. Starfish and sea urchins are ideal animal models to study fertilization and other fundamental cell biology processes as their eggs are fertilized at different stages of the maturation process (meiotic cycle), which, in starfish, can be induced in vitro in the laboratory. Our results have shown that the optimal physiological conditions for a normal fertilization response strictly depend on the integrity of the F-actin-linked structural organization of the egg surface and cortex established during maturation.
New insights on the role of the vitelline layer (glycocalyx) surrounding the egg plasma membrane for the species-specific recognition of sea urchin gametes will also be discussed.
Biography: Dr. Luigia Santella is a Research Director at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (SZN), where she has been a staff member since 1989. Her research focuses on signal transduction in starfish and sea urchin oocytes and eggs, particularly the role of intracellular Ca²⁺ dynamics in meiotic maturation, fertilization, and early embryonic development. Her work has significantly contributed to the understanding of cortical F-actin dynamics in fertilization responses.
Dr. Santella has been actively engaged in international scientific symposia, both as an organizer and invited speaker across Europe, the USA, and Asia. She has also contributed to EMBO and NSF-sponsored educational programs in Brazil and Uruguay (1999–2015) and has been an annual visiting scholar at Tohoku University, Japan, since 1993. Her research findings have been included in the Developmental Biology textbook (13th edition) and featured in the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo.
She is a member of Sigma Xi (2022), the Academia Europaea (2004), and has served on the editorial boards of prestigious journals, including Cells, Zygote, and Biochemical Biophysical Research Communications. Among her many accolades, she received the Bruce Alberts Award for Excellence in Science Education (2012) and an Honorable Mention in the Nikon Instruments Competition (2015) for her time-lapse microscopy work.
Dr. Santella has authored 99 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and editorials, with an H-index of 38. She maintains active collaborations with leading scientists worldwide, including Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn (France), Prof. Kazuyoshi Chiba (Japan), and Dr. Laurent Meijer (France).
For more information, visit her profile on Google Scholar.
