Dr. Gaia Pigino serves as the Associate Head of the Centre for Structural Biology at the Human Technopole in Milan, Italy. At the forefront of structural and molecular cell biology, her team combines cutting-edge methodologies from both disciplines to investigate the molecular machinery essential for the assembly and functioning of motile and primary cilia. Gaia earned her PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Siena, Italy, in 2007, focusing on bio-indicators of contaminated soils. Her research took a pivotal turn towards electron microscopy (EM), a central tool in her studies. Following a brief postdoc at the EM Lab, University of Siena (2007-2009), where her fascination with cilia biology began, Gaia advanced her career in Switzerland. At ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherer Institute (PSI) from 2009 to 2012, she investigated the structure of ciliary components using cryo-electron tomography. In 2012, Gaia became a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, Germany, before making her transition to the Human Technopole in Milan in 2021.