Dr. Francesca Becherucci is consultant of Pediatric Nephrology at Meyer Children’s Hospital of Florence.

Before medical school, she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology at University of Florence (Italy) with a thesis on the mechanisms of homing of adult stem cells in damaged tissues. During this period, she trained in basic research and molecular biology in Prof. Paola Romagnani’s lab. She then received her MD degree in 2010 at University of Florence and trained in Nephrology from 2011 to 2016. She completed her PhD in Clinical Sciences (Clinical and Experimental Medicine) in 2019 studying the role of next-generation sequencing in the diagnosis of inherited kidney diseases. She performed a research scholarship on rare kidney diseases before she started working as Consultant of Pediatric Nephrology at Meyer Children’s Hospital of Florence in 2020. She is member of the Institutional Committee for rare diseases of Meyer Children’s Hospital and she is the author of several integrated care pathways for rare kidney diseases. She received the National Academic Qualification as Associate Professor in Nephrology in 2017.

As part of her training, she attended a 2-years program in ultrasound in nephrology by the Italian Society of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (SIUMB). She also trained in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Summer School “Modern Methods in Biostatistics and Epidemiology” and “HMX Fundamentals- Genetics” at Harvard Medical School.

Her research interests are mainly focused on the genetic basis of hereditary kidney diseases (including glomerulopathies, tubulopathies, ciliopathies/CAKUT). She has been actively working in many clinical trials and research projects on this topic. Given her strong background on basic research, she has also been working on kidney regeneration and its role in understanding the pathophysiology of kidney disorders, including rare ones. She uses genetics and clinical observations in patients to gain insights into the molecular basis of kidney diseases.