Founders

Luciano Zardi

Luciano Zardi, Ph.D., was the Director of the Laboratory of Cell Biology at the National Institute for Research on Cancer in Genoa (Italy) from 1975 to 2003. Since 2003 he directed the Laboratory of Recombinant Therapeutic Proteins of the Advanced Biotechnology Center in Genoa. He has made significant contributions in the area of the ECM of neoplastic and normal adult tissues or of inflammatory degenerative diseases. He was the first to demonstrate that in neoplastic cells and in cancer the alternative splicing of various pre-mRNA is deregulated, and that this process leads to the production of new proteins that can be used as targets for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes both in cancer and degenerative inflammatory pathologies. In 1987 he discovered a novel fibronectin isoform (B-FN) that is widely acknowledged as the best marker of angiogenesis. For these findings he, with Dario Neri, received the Abbot Award in 2000. Recently, he discovered a novel strategy for the generation of therapeutic recombinant proteins with good properties of solubility and stability. He is author of over 200 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and his papers have been cited about 15000 times. He is inventor in 10 patents, all today used by pharmaceutical companies. He lectures on “Human Recombinant Proteins of Therapeutic Interest” at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Genoa.

Rodolfo Quarto, M.D., is Full Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Genoa.  He was trained in  biochemistry and cell biology at the NIH, Bethesda, USA, during his post-doctoral period. He has worked for 15 years at the National Cancer Research Institute in Genova, Italy. He has made significant contributions to the area of tissue engineering and cell therapy with a total of nearly 70 publications in peer reviewed journals and his papers have been cited over 2500 times. He is inventor in 4 patents. Since 2004 he is the Head of the Stem Cell Laboratory, located within the Advanced Biotechnology Center (ABC) in Genova. His laboratory participates in national and EU projects in the areas of bone repair and biomaterials for tissue engineering.