After graduate work in Ferrara and Milan on the modulation of transmitter release in the CNS, she was awarded travelling fellowships by the Royal Society and the Italian Ministry of Education to work at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College in London.

This project led to the description of what is now called the GABAC receptor[2] and the award of a PhD in 1988.

After a career break for family reasons, she undertook postdoctoral work at UCL, first with Clifford J. Woolf in the Anatomy Department, then with David Colquhoun in Pharmacology.

[5][6] The channel opening and shutting rates were similar for all agonists, contrary to what had been thought for 50 years[7]

Advisory Editorial Board of the Journal of General Physiology (USA) 2018 onwards Board of Reviewing Editors of Science 2014 Gary Price Memorial Lecture, British Pharmacological Society meeting, London[11] 2018 Fabio Ruzzier Memorial Lecture, Societa' Italiana di Fisiologia, Florence Trustee and council member of the Physiological Society (2012-2016)