Dr. Elena Ziviani received her PhD in neuroscience from the MRC toxicology unit in Leicester, UK. In November 2007, she joined Alex Whitworth’s group in Sheffield, UK, where she studied the role of the Parkinson’s disease (PD)-related proteins PINK1 and Parkin in mitochondrial function using Drosophila as a neurodegenerative disease model. In December 2010, she was awarded EMBO long term and Marie Curie Action fellowships to investigate the role of Parkin-dependent protein modification on the regulation of mitochondria physiology, and joined Luca Scorrano group at PHYM, Geneva, a world leader in mitochondria studies. In 2014, she received her first MJFF Rapid Response Innovation Award for her research in the field of PD, and after this she was awarded with “Brain Gain” and “Ricerca Finalizzata young researcher” research grants to further develop her studies independently at the department of biology, University of Padua. She is currently associate professor in biochemistry in the biology department at the University of Padua, Italy.