Stefania’s story

ERA Fellowship programme is a great learning opportunity. Fellowships are designed to foster the professional development of the young clinical investigators and researchers, furthermore such international exchanges contribute significantly to the cooperation among centres and institutions. It enables young doctors to work alongside leading experts, contributing to the harmonization of specific knowledge and the reduction of gaps in expertise at an international level. ERA fellowship programme requires detailed applications signed by both the home and the host institutions delineating the competencies that fellows are expected to obtain and specific project plans to guide their progress throughout the fellowship. In addition, fellows are requested to provide comprehensive feedbacks and complete an evaluation at the end of the experience. This system ensures high quality training in which fellows obtain new skills and tools to improve their expertise, drive change in their home institutions, and ultimately widen their future opportunities for their careers.

ERA fellowship is without a doubt a relevant experience I proudly mention in my professional CV. It is a great recognition and achievement in the field of Nephrology. The description of the fellowship allows me to emphasize my skills and areas of interests.

ERA Fellowship has allowed me to expand my knowledge and gain essential skills necessary to carry out research activities in the field of genetic diseases. I approached the rare kidney diseases during my training in Heidelberg. I initiated an active collaboration with the European Reference Network for Rare Kidney
Disease (ERKnet) and I started the ERKNet Postgraduate Curriculum which is still ongoing, namely a 3-year programme consisting of webinars and case-based eLearning covering the whole spectrum of rare kidney diseases.

Overall, it was an amazing personal and professional experience, I would recommend it to everyone.
It was certainly a challenging experience, in a constant learning process catching up with a changing environment and new tasks I increased my flexibility and adaptability. I had the opportunity to work with international foremost experts and researchers and to learn from them how to properly lead scientific research. Specifically, I have learned about international data collection, comprehensive literature review process, and basics of genotype and phenotype characterization. I gained experience in genetic data collection and interpretation (variants annotation/ classification of pathogenicity/ in silico-prediction of pathogenicity etc.), the use of international databases or datasets (ClinVar/ExAC/UCSC), and statistical analysis.
Under the supervision of Prof. Franz Schaefer I coordinated an international research group. In a joint effort of the European Rare Kidney Disease Reference Network (ERKNet), the PodoNet and registries for SRNS and hereditary mitochondriopathies, European and Asian pediatric nephrology societies (ESPN,AsPN) we provided a comprehensive description of the clinical presentation, outcomes, potential treatment and genotype- phenotype correlations of primary CoQ10 deficiency, a group of rare mitochondrial diseases associated with steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome. We were able to publish two papers in the prestigious journal Kidney International. These publications accounted for a solid achievement for my professional portfolio. ERA Fellowship has provided me the ideal basis for building future research projects and collaborations.