Dr. Santella's research focuses on the structural and molecular mechanisms of signal transduction during oocyte maturation and fertilization of starfish and sea urchin eggs suitable for microinjection and imaging analysis. She has demonstrated that the NAADP and InsP₃ Ca²-linked second messengers play distinct roles in initiating and propagating the fertilization Ca²⁺ response, in starfish eggs, respectively, as well as that specific Ca²⁺ signals can originate and propagate within the nucleus and subplasmalemmal regions. Recent studies have shown that the structural organization of the actin cytoskeleton in the egg cortex significantly affects the sequence of events characterizing the fertilization response (including Ca2+ signals) in starfish eggs, and this finding has been applied to sea urchin eggs as well. Dr. Santella has been actively involved in promoting international collaboration and facilitating intellectual exchange, as well as in organizing several international symposia. She is often invited to speak at conferences in Europe, the USA, and Asia. From 1993 to 2018, she made annual visits to the Asamushi Research Center for Marine Biology at Tohoku University in Japan to perform experiments on the local starfish species. Additionally, she has lectured in educational programs supported by EMBO and NSF in Brazil and Uruguay.