Roberta Drago earned her Master’s degree from the University of Parma, conducting her thesis research at Fondazione Toscana Life Sciences in Siena. Her work focused on developing mRNA-based protocols to induce gene overexpression in primary tumor B cells from leukemia patients, increasing her interest in the human immune system in health and disease.

In November 2021, she started her PhD program in Translational and Precision Medicine at the University of Siena, studying tumor-regulating mechanisms in B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia. During this time, she gained expertise in primary tumor B cell manipulation, developing a CRISPR-Cas9 high-throughput gene function screening platform and working on gene editing in transgenic mouse models. More recently, her research has expanded to studying tumor microenvironment (TME) interactions driving carcinogenesis.

In February 2024, Roberta Drago joined the Cellular and Molecular Oncology Laboratory,headed by Prof. Giorgio Stassi, as a postdoctoral fellow.