First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Biology Open, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Annalisa Pinsino and Andi Alijagic are co-first authors on ‘Sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus immune cells in culture: formulation of the appropriate harvesting and culture media and maintenance conditions’, published in BIO. Annalisa is a Third-class Researcher in her lab at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Biomedicina e Immunologia Molecolare ‘A. Monroy’, Palermo, Italy, investigating probing safety of nanoparticles by outlining sea urchin innate signalling pathways in vitro. Andi is a PhD Student in the lab of Dr Annalisa Pinsino