Laura Ballerini graduated (MD) at the Università di Firenze, Italy in 1988. She was a Post-doc at UCL from 1991 and later became assistant professor in Physiology at the Biophysics Sector of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA-ISAS) of Trieste, Italy in 1995. In 2002 Laura Ballerini became associate professor in Physiology at the Università di Trieste, Italy.

She has been working for several years on the physiology of spinal cord neurons/spinal cord networks and has vast experience in using a variety of experimental electrophysiological techniques and in vitro model systems. Laura Ballerini has provided important contribution to the understanding of spinal network physiology, plasticity and development. In her laboratory at UniTS she developed and is currently using the organotypic slice cultures from the rat/mouse spinal cord as a model system.

Recent most representative publications

1. M.Sarantis, L.Ballerini, B.Miller, A.Silver and D.Attwell (1993). Glutamate uptake from the synaptic cleft does not shape the decay of the non-NMDA component of the synaptic current. Neuron, 11, 541-549.      
2. M. Galante, A. Nistri and L. Ballerini (2000). Opposite changes in synaptic activity of organotypic spinal cord cultures after chronic block of AMPA/kainate or glycine and GABAA receptors. J Physiol., 523, 639-651.
3. M. Rosato-Siri, M. Grandolfo and L. Ballerini (2002). Activity-dependent modulation of GABAergic synapses in developing rat spinal networks in vitro. Eur. J. Neurosci. 16, 2123-2135.
4. M.D. Rosato-Siri, D. Zoccolan, F. Furlan and L. Ballerini (2004). Interneuron bursts are spontaneously associated to muscle contractions only during early phases of mouse spinal network development: a study in organotypic cultures. Eur. J. Neurosci. 20; 2697-2710.
5. V. Lovat, D. Pantarotto, L. Lagostena, B. Cacciari, M. Grandolfo, M. Righi, G. Spalluto, M. Prato and L. Ballerini (2005) Carbon nanotube substrates boost neuronal electrical signalling. NanoLett. 5, 1107-1110.
6. Francesco Furlan, Giuliano Taccola, Micaela Grandolfo, Leonardo Guasti, Annarosa Arcangeli, Andrea Nistri and Laura Ballerini (2007) ERG conductance expression modulates the excitability of ventral horn GABAergic interneurons that control rhythmic oscillations in the developing mouse spinal cord J Neurosci  27, 919 –928
7. Mazzatenta A, Giugliano M, Campielli S, Gambazzi L, Businaro L, Markram H, Prato M and Ballerini L. (2007) Interfacing Neurons with Carbon Nanotubes: Electrical Signal Transfer and Synaptic stimulation in Cultured Brain Circuits J Neurosci 27:6931-6936.
8. Antonietta Sucapane, Giada Cellot, Maurizio Prato, Michele Giugliano, Vladimir Parpura and Laura Ballerini (2009) Interactions between cultured neurons and carbon nanotubes: A nanoneuroscience vignette. Journal of Nanoneuroscience, 1:10-16. published on-line 2008. DOI: 10.1166/jns.2009.002
9. Laura Ballerini (2008). Bridging multiple levels of exploration: towards a neuroengineering-based approach to physiological and pathological problems in neuroscience. Front. Neurosci. 2,1 : 24-25. doi: 10.3389/neuro.01.024.2008
10. Michele Giugliano, Maurizio Prato and Laura Ballerini (2008) Nanomaterial/neuronal hybrid system for functional recovery of the CNS. Drug Discov Today: Disease Model, vol. 5 pp. 37-43. Special Issue on Nervous system disorders doi:10.1016/j.ddmod.2008.07.004
11. Cellot G., Cilia E., Cipollone S., Rancic V., Sucapane A., Giordani S., Gambazzi L., Markram H., Grandolfo M., Scaini D., Gelain G., Casalis L., Prato M., Giugliano M. and Ballerini L. (2009) Carbon nanotubes might improve neuronal performance by favouring electrical shortcuts Nature Nanotechnology vol. 4 pp 126-133. doi:10.1038/NNANO.2008.374 published on line 21st december 2008
12. C. Gaillard, G. Cellot, S. Li, H. Dumortier, G. Spalluto, B. Cacciari, M. Prato, L. Ballerini, and A. Bianco (2009) Carbon nanotubes carrying cell adhesion peptides do not interfere with neuronal functionality Advanced Materials  21, 1–6.
13. Sara Sibilla, Alessandra Fabbro, Micaela Grandolfo, Paola D'Andrea, Andrea Nistri and Laura Ballerini (2009) The patterns of spontaneous Ca2+ signals generated by ventral spinal neurons in vitro show time-dependent refinement. Eur J Neurosci  29, 1543–1559.
14. Sara Sibilla and Laura Ballerini (2009) GABAergic and glycinergic interneuron expression during spinal cord development: dynamic interplay between inhibition and excitation in the control of ventral network outputs. Progress in Neurobiology 89, 46-60. doi:10.1016/j.pneurobio.2009.06.001 
15. M. Giugliano, L. Gambazzi,  L. Ballerini, M. Prato, S. Campidelli (2009) Carbon nanotubes as electrical interfaces to neurons. In Nanomaterial interfaces with neural cells: carbon nanomaterials and quantum dots, Parpura V and Silva GA, eds., Springer New York, New York USA (accepted for publication)
16. Nanomaterials for Neural Interfaces (2009) Nicholas A. Kotov, Jessica Winter, Isaac P. Clements, Edward Jan, Brian P. Timko, Ste´phane Campidelli, Smita Pathak, Andrea Mazzatenta, Charles M. Lieber, Maurizio Prato, Ravi V. Bellamkonda, Gabriel A. Silva, Nadine Wong Shi Kam, Fernando Patolsky, and Laura Ballerini. Advanced Materials 21, 1-35.
17. Laura Ballerini (2009) Insights into medio-lateral signalling in the developing mouse hindbrain: properties of midline drivers of network activity. J Physiol 587.21,  p 5007