Silvia Da Pra receives EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship
Silvia Da Pra, postdoctoral researcher at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society, has been awarded a 2026 EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship to study hormonal control of limb regeneration.
Some animals, like frog tadpoles, can fully regenerate an amputated limb — but only during a narrow window of their development. As metamorphosis proceeds, this remarkable ability fades. Why does it disappear, and could it be restored?
Silvia Da Pra is investigating the role of hormones through a high-throughput screen, combining single-cell genomics with tissue culture models. While most previous research has focused on signals exchanged locally at the wound site, her project asks whether chemical messengers travelling through the bloodstream — the same hormones that drive metamorphosis, regulate stress responses, and control metabolism — might also be key regulators of regenerative competence.
Working with Xenopus laevis, the African clawed frog, at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society, she will determine which hormones promote limb regrowth and which ones suppress it.
The implications reach far beyond frogs. By charting how the body's hormonal landscape sets the boundaries of regenerative ability, this research could open new avenues for regenerative medicine.
About Silvia Da Pra
Born in a small village in the Dolomites in Italy, Silvia Da Pra is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society in the laboratory of Dr. Can Aztekin, where she investigates how hormones controls the capacity to regenerate limbs in vertebrates.
She completed her PhD in 2025 at the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, where she studied how systemic factors — in particular glucocorticoids, a class of steroid hormones — contribute to suppressing the heart's ability to regenerate in mammals. Her work revealed that circulating hormones override locally produced growth factors, blocking their ability to drive regeneration.
About EMBO
EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships support excellent postdoctoral researchers throughout Europe and the world for a period of up to two years.
EMBO is an organization of more than 2,100 leading researchers that promotes excellence in the life sciences in Europe and beyond. The major goals of the organization are to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulate the exchange of scientific information, and help build a research environment where scientists can achieve their best work.
EMBO supports talented researchers, selected through impartial evaluation processes, to allow them to do great science.