Barbara Gerratana

Barbara Gerratana is a programme coordination manager at the European Innovation Council and SMEs Agency (EISMEA) in the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder Unit handling a portfolio of projects in synthetic biology, regenerative medicine, and engineered living materials for which she developed the 2021 EIC Call. After graduating in chemistry from the University of Pavia, Barbara received her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison working in mechanistic enzymology for drug development. In 2004, after a post-doc in natural products biosynthesis at The Johns Hopkins University, she became assistant professor and then associate tenured professor at the University of Maryland- College Park. Her research group funded by National Institute of Health (NIH) worked on drug target characterization for infectious diseases and bioengineering for cancer drug development. In 2010 Barbara joined NIH as a programme manager managing portfolios of projects in biotechnology and biocatalysis; and developing programmes and policy in biotechnology with focus in microbiome and synthetic biology representing NIH and cooperating with other US funding agencies and departments as well as the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the White House. Before coming back to Europe in 2017, Barbara was a programme leader in the Office of the NIH Director managing and implementing Common Funds programmes in Metabolomics, the Druggable Genome, and Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity.