After graduating (summa cum laude) in pharmacy in 1986, she moved to Boston in the United States for a few years, where she specialized at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[2] She studied neural stem cell differentiation in the area of the human brain associated with degenerative diseases under Professor Ronald McKay.

[4] She is now full professor at the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Pharmacology of Neurodegenerative Diseases in the Department of Biosciences of University of Milan.

[6] Of his choice of her as Senator for Life, President Napolitano said: "choosing her is meant as an appreciation and an encouragement for many Italians of the new generations who commit themselves, amid difficulties, to scientific research”.

[8] The scientifically unsupported claims were primarily being made by a private well-connected company called the Stamina Foundation which had been started in 2009.

[9] The eventual enquiry report demanded a number of points including that courts should always have scientific representation in cases of this sort.

[9] In 2016, Cattaneo helped raising concerns about three anti-GMO papers by Federico Infascelli at the University of Naples, which were later retracted from Nature.