Valentina Greco

Valentina Greco was born in Palermo, Italy, and earned her undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology at the University of Palermo, Italy (1996). She earned her PhD at the EMBL/MPI-CBG with Professor Suzanne Eaton, Germany (1998-2002), her post-doc at the Rockefeller University (2003-2009), and is currently Carolyn Walch Slayman Professor of Genetics and Yale Stem Cell Center (2009-present).

Greco lab aims to define how tissues maintain themselves throughout the course of our lives in the face of continuous cellular turnover, frequent injuries, and spontaneous mutations. Greco lab established approaches to visualize and manipulate stem cells in intact animals which lead to a number of discoveries including but not limited to 1) stem cell position dictates their fate in the hair follicle, 2) a stem cell-mediated phagocytic clearance mechanism regulates the size of the hair follicle stem cell pool and 3) tissue correction preserves skin epithelial homeostasis. Dr. Greco is also the recipient of several awards including most recently the 2021 International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Momentum Award, the 2019 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the 2019 Yale Postdoctoral Mentoring Award, the 2018 Yale Graduate Mentor Award in the Natural Sciences, and in 2018 was named the Inaugural Holder of the Carolyn Slayman Endowed Professorship.