After completing his Ph.D. and post doctoral training, Dr. Davide Zella joined the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Subsequently he joined the Institute of Human Virology and the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Dr. Davide Zella has more than 25 years of experience in the field of microbiology/virology, immunology, cancer biology and molecular biology. He has more than 50 publications, including peer reviewed articles and books chapters. Early in his career Dr. Zella studied  the interactions between IFN-alpha and the immuno-system, in particular the anti-proliferative ability of IFN-alpha, the regulation of chemokine receptors by Interferons, and mechanisms of intracellular replication of HIV. Recent focus of Dr Zella’s research has been done is collaboration with Professor Lu’s laboratory, leading to the characterization of the interactions between P53 and its antagonists (MDM2 and MDMX). In fact, inhibition of P53 through interaction with these antagonists is observed in about 50% of cancers, even though P53 is fully functional. Indeed, activation of P53 results in some cases in partial reduction of cancer cells number. Aim of the study was to design peptides able to block such interaction, thus reactivating p53. More recently, the focus of Dr. Zella’s research has been the study of the interaction between components of the microbiota and human cells to unveil molecular mechanisms of cellular transformation caused by bacteria. In fact, beside the well established association between H. Pilory and gastric cancer,  many reports highlight the correlation between several components of the microbiota and cancer, and for this reason our group is interested in studying the link between cancerogenesis and bacteria, with particular attention to Mycoplasma.