Dr. Irene Castellano Pellicena received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University Bradford in 2017, after having completed her European Industrial Doctoral (EID) Training programme involving two partners: the Centre for Skin Sciences, University of Bradford, UK and Philips Research, Netherlands. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on the role of photoreceptors in human skin physiology as potential targets for light-based wound healing therapies where she discovered the expression of opsins and cryptochromes in normal and wounded human skin as well as the effect of photobiomodulation in wound healing.
The results of Dr. Castellano's work demonstrate the role of visible light during epidermal barrier recovery through opsins and circadian regulation. Her work was presentetd in 2017 at the 37th American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS) Conference in San Diego, CA, USA. Dr. Castellano's novel contribution to the field of skin photobiology and photobiomodulation was also acknowledged by travel grant awards by the European Society of Dermatological Research to attend the 2017 Annual Meeting in Salzburg, Austria and the British Society of Investigative Dermatology to participate in the 2016 Annual Meeting in Dundee, UK. Currently, Dr. Castellano holds a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centre for Skin Sciences, University of Bradford, working with the director of the center, Prof. Desmond Tobin, on melanin distribution in human epidermis, expanding her knowledge in the field of human skin biology.