Caterina Scirgolea graduated in Medical Biotechnology in a double degree program between Milano Bicocca University and Université Paris Cité. During her master thesis she joined the Signaling and Pathogenesis laboratory directed by Robert Weil at Pasteur Institute in Paris where she investigated T-cell mediated inflammation and autoimmunity. She then moved to Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan to join the Laboratory of Translational Immunology directed by Dr. Enrico Lugli. During her PhD she identified a population of CD8+ T cells with tissue-resident memory features within tumors that is associated with improved prognosis in breast cancer. In 2021 she won an AIRC (Italian Association for Cancer Research) postdoctoral fellowship to study the molecular mechanisms at the basis of CD8+ T cell dysfunction in the tumor microenvironment.