Laura Fusaro

Cutting Edge Congress
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Dr. Fusaro received her DVM from the University of Bologna (IT) College of Veterinary Medicine where she also earned a PhD in veterinary pathology with a thesis on the role of Porcine Circovirus in the Italian swine farms. She completed her residency in anatomic pathology in France, dividing her time between the Veterinary Schools of Lyon and Maisons-Alfort in the Paris metropolitan area. During her residency, she gained industry experience and training at Sanofi Alfortville in the safety assessment team led by Dr. Xavier Palazzi, where she developed her interest in digital pathology and computational image analysis. After moving to the United States in 2013, she completed a postdoctoral teaching fellowship at North Carolina State University under the supervision of Dr. John Cullen, where she also mentored and trained veterinary students and pathology residents while preparing for the ACVP board exam. In 2015, she left academia and moved to the Bay Area, where she joined the biotech firm Rani Therapeutics as a senior scientist and pathologist with a particular focus on medical device testing in ex vivo and in vivo settings. Her primary responsibility was the design and execution of preclinical studies to demonstrate efficacious delivery of biologics in large animal and nonhuman primate small intestines after oral administration of their proprietary capsule. In 2020, she joined Denali Therapeutics as a senior pathologist, where she specializes in drug safety testing of large and small molecules in mouse, rat, and nonhuman primates, with a focus on neurodegenerative diseases and the biology of the blood-brain barrier. She is a member of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists and the Society of Toxicologic Pathology. She is currently studying to take the American Board of Toxicology exam.