Is Full Professor of Applied Biology and Director of the Laboratory of Synthetic and Systems Biology - SynSysLab at the Department of Drug Sciences and Founder and Director of the Research Centre for Molecular Preclinical and Translational Imaging – IMPRonTE at the University of Catania, Italy.
Medical Doctor with a PhD in Embryology, with research experiences first in Developmental Immunology at Guy’s Hospital, London (M Adinolfi); and then in Developmental Biology at the International Institute for Genetics and Biophysics, CNR, Naples (E Boncinelli) and at MRC National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London (R Krumlauf); at Dibit, H San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan (E Boncinelli), and at MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, KCL, London (A Lumsden), he has acquired a strong expertise in the characterization of molecular mechanisms underlying events during cell determination, differentiation and migration, both in vitro and in vivo, that has been applied in researches in the field on Experimental Neurobiology and Experimental Oncology, as documented by more than 70 articles published on leading international scientific journals, such as Nature, Science, Nature Genetics, EMBO, PNAS, Genomics, Eur J Neuroscience, PLOS, Scientific Reports (Scopus May 2019 h-index 28; Citazioni 3879) and by a successful history in fundraising with more than 20mln€ raised in the last ten years from National and International public and private funding bodies.
He received a , he has strongly complemented his Academic research by Industrial R&D activity as Advisor, Business Angel and serial Entrepreneur mainly in the field of Health Biotechnology and Sustainable Innovation, with strong a experience in Research Management, Fund Raising and Technology Transfer.
As Director of R&D and Business Development of the Oncology Biotech Company IOM Ricerca srl for 10 years, he conceived and implemented an integrated plan establishing the first Translational Medicine and Biotechnology Campus in Sicily.
He was Co-founder and Scientific Director of the R&D Biotech StartUp Bio3 Research srl; co-founder and President of Economisti Research srl (EResearch) a R&D and Consultancy Company for sustainability and innovation in the field of Biotechnology, Renewable and Alternative Energies and Convergent Technologies.