Professor Teresa Marafioti

Professor Teresa Marafioti is consultant histopathologist at UCL Hospitals. Prof Marafioti studied medicine and surgery at University of Messina (Italy) and trained as pathologist at the department of pathology (University of Messina).

She sub-specialised in haematopathology at the Institut fur Pathologie (Free University, Berlin) where she worked as clinical lecturer from 1994 to 2000. From 2001 to 2009, Teresa joined the team of the late Prof David Y Mason (LRF Immunodiagnostics Unit, NDCLS, Oxford University) and she was responsible for a study focused on the characterization of intracellular molecules in order to identify novel biomarkers for lymphoma and leukaemia diagnostics and potential targets for cancer personalized therapy.

Since 2010, Prof Marafioti has worked at University College London. She is a full time professor of haematopathology and also a consultant histopathologist to UCLH providing a diagnostic service for leukaemia and lymphoma. Prof Marafioti was specialty lead for haematopathology at the Department of Cellular Pathology at UCLH for three years (2016-Feb 2019), with managerial and clinical leadership roles which led to interactions with clinical colleagues. She provides private diagnostic work at HCA and she has actively contributed to establish the HCA private haematology multidisciplinary meeting at UCLH. She is also a member of the HCA Immunology/Cancer Genetics Governance Board with responsibility for developments in the area of molecular pathology.

Prof Marafioti is a certified reader for PD-L1 staining (for both Ventana/Roche and DAKO antibodies) and she is involved in the scoring of PD-L1 for clinical studies carried out at HSL-AD.

At UCL, her research team continues to work on the identification of novel biomarkers which shed light on lymphoma diagnostic entities, their associated prognoses, and the possibility of such markers being therapeutic targets. This is illustrated by a recent study on a receptor (TRCB1) present on T lymphocytes, the analysis of which not only aids the diagnosis of T-cell lymphomas but has also being used as a target for genetically engineered T cells, called CAR-T cells, for the treatment of patients with T cell lymphoma. This allowed UCLH, together with Autolus Ltd, to open the first CAR T-cell clinical trial (AUTO-4). Prof Marafioti and her team have also developed technologies to facilitate the detailed analysis of the tumour microenvironment which is relevant to disease progression and response to therapy, particularly immunotherapy . Studies of the microenvironment can inform which patients are likely to respond to immune check-point inhibitors and which will not.

She is a fully registered medical practitioner with specialist registration (General Medical Council, UK), a member of the department of pathology biomedical executive research committee at UCL and, a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and Royal Society of Medicine, a member of the British Lymphoma Pathology Group (BLPG), the European Association of Haematopathology (EAHP), the International Academy of Pathology (IAP) and the LYSA (The Lymphoma Study Association). She acts as referee for a number of scientific journals (Blood, Haematologica, Histopathology, Journal of Pathology, Leukemia, Leukemia and Lymphoma, Blood Advances) and funding bodies (AIRC Italy; Bloodwise UK; Children's Cancer and Leukaemia Group UK and Dutch Cancer Society). She is on the Editorial Boards of Bloods, Antibodies, Journal of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, The Open Leukemia Journal, Pathologica and International Journal of Hematologic Oncology.

Prof Marafioti is frequently invited to present her research at international and national conferences and meetings. She has been co-authored the UK guidelines for investigation of nodular lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin lymphoma (2016).