Associate Professor
Department of Basic Neuroscience
Coordinator, Synapsy Centre for Neuroscience Research in Mental Health
Vice-Dean for Basic Research and Technology
Camilla Bellone holds a Master's degree in Pharmacy from the University of Milan. In 2002, she joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva, where she specialised, within the Department of Basic Neurosciences, in the neurophysiology of synapses and the cellular mechanisms underlying the development of addictions. After completing a PhD at the University of Milan, she did a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of San Francisco.
She returned to the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine in 2008 as a lecturer in the Department of Basic Neuroscience. Her research focused on the molecular mechanisms involved in synaptic plasticity induced by addictive substances in the reward system. She has since developed a line of research into the neural determinants of social behaviour in individuals with autism spectrum disorders, for which she has won a number of prestigious grants, including an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2019. Already the recipient of an SNSF Ambizione fellowship in 2011, she was awarded a SNSF professorship grant in 2014, which enabled her to set up her own laboratory at the University of Lausanne. In 2016, she returned to Geneva as an assistant professor and was appointed associate professor in 2020. Camilla Bellone is also Coordinator of the Synapsy Centre for Neuroscience Research in Mental Health, founded after the completion of the NCCR Synapsy. As of 15 July 2023, she is Vice-Dean for Basic Research and Technology.