Fabrizio d'Adda di Fagagna, Ph.D. is a cell and molecular biologist that studies the involvement of the DNA damage response (DDR) pathways in physiologically-relevant processes such as aging and cancer.

Fabrizio studied Biology at the University of Trieste and obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at SISSA, the International School for Advanced Studies, in Trieste, Italy, while working at ICGEB (International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology) under the guidance of Mauro Giacca and Arturo Falaschi.

As a research associate and postdoc in Cambridge, UK, in the group of Steve Jackson at the Gurdon Institute , he discovered the engagement of DDR factors in the maintenance of telomeres and demonstrated that replicative cellular senescence, a form of cell aging, is the outcome of DDR activation caused by the direct recognition of critically short telomeres.