Nicole graduated in biological sciences at the University of Milano, Italy, with a dissertation on plant population and evolutionary genetics. She later obtained a PhD in genetics from the University of Dundee, and undertook post-doctoral training in human population and statistical genetics at University College London, conducting applied and methodological work in evolutionary genetics and association studies. In 2005 Nicole joined the pharmacogenomics department at Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development (Raritan, USA). In 2007 she joined the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and since 2009 she has led her own team. In 2013 Nicole was appointed as Principal of Research in the Platelet Biology group.
