FESTIVAL DELLA SCIENZA MEDICA

INTELLIGENCE OF HEALTH
BOLOGNA, 9-12 MAY 2019

Health depends on intelligence just as intelligence depends on health. Studies in a discipline known as “cognitive epidemiology” – a topic to be discussed at the Festival by psychologist Ian Deary – have shown that higher intelligence, measured as IQ, at the age of 11 lowers the risk of vascular disease, obesity, various chronic diseases, and some mental disorders. More intelligent people fall ill less both as adults and in old age. This effect is not caused by socio-economic status, which is known to inversely correlate with morbidity and mortality. It is directly linked with IQ, which is however an important factor in attaining a socio-economic status that protects health.

Cognitive epidemiology has shown evidence that once people reach the age of 80, health and longevity are mostly impacted by the cognitive decline taking place from the age of 11 to 79. In particular, it is a person’s fluid or critical cognitive abilities that count rather than initial crystallized intelligence. These observations apply equally to men and women.

Poor health penalize intelligence. In countries where children grow up undernourished, or contracting infections – some of which, like malaria, severely affect the brain – suffer cognitive impairments. This has negative knock-on effects not only for the individual but also for the economic, health, and social development prospects of a country. For when too many people remain of low intelligence, it will be more difficult to create a society founded on respect for the individual, economic freedom, justice, the right to health, and so on. Some scholars believe that the infectious disease load as well as undernutrition, which varies from country to country, explains the differences in IQ found around the world. In their opinion, this could also explain the so-called Flynn effect, term that refers to the increase in intelligence observed from the 1930s in Western countries, which could be caused in part by the drop in the prevalence of those infectious diseases, that sap the metabolic energy required in childhood to develop a cognitively efficient brain.

The challenge, facing increasingly personalized healthcare, is to understand how to enable patients to intelligently control their behavior, and therefore avoid or manage risks to health. This includes the threat to health posed by pseudo-medicine. in other words, how can intelligence be improved, in order to avoid the spread of beliefs like homeopathy, acupuncture, and the so-called complementary medicines.

Seen against the backdrop of the data provided by cognitive epidemiology, prevention becomes a question of understanding how education levels and educating women in developing countries can contribute to improving health. To what extent can we, in today’s affluent complex societies, prevent our cognitive biases and physiological constraints from giving rise to behavioral patterns that put health at risk?

There is a further forward-looking aspect to consider. The human species has developed machines with artificial intelligence, whose use in medicine is exploding. Indeed, AI will have an enormous impact on the treatment and prevention of disease, and, by the same token, on health promotion.

Some believe that AI will gradually make the physician obsolete. It is unlikely, however, that the physician of the future will resemble the robots of sci-fi movies, uttering diagnoses – almost always in female voices – and doing everything by themselves, with minimal assistance from man. AI will nonetheless lead to a new kind of physician, who must be able to work with machines, helping them to learn with increasing versatility and “intelligence” in order to implement practices and decisions taken on the basis of indicators, and study, i.e. verify, how to apply baseline knowledge to develop new therapies or prevention methods. Something similar happened in the past, when diagnostic techniques made some kinds of semiological expertise obsolete in the clinic.

AI has speeded up the diagnostic process and lowered error rates. Machines are more accurate and faster at checking large amounts of data, a task that would take months for a team of physicians. This means more lives saved. AI will also remove the dramatic uncertainties that are today part of many clinical practices, notably surgery, where robots will soon become smarter and more independent than humans. The robot’s ability to handle metadata, meta-models, augmented reality, deep learning, and machine learning etc. will increase its ability to work with increasing precision – which in turn means increasing patient safety and confidence. AI may also reduce defensive medicine. Physicians’ mistakes and erroneous diagnoses could be wiped out, as more accurate, efficient algorithms allow physicians to adopt indisputable standards.

The main problems surrounding the planning and use of AI today, arise from the fact that our psychological flaws and human prejudices are embedded in the algorithms we use, as data collection is based on our biased perspectives. These errors are then carried over to the machine’s decision-making processes and in turn feed into the clinical recommendations generated. As a result, some algorithms have been seen to be racist, discriminate against women and children, etc. Data sources must be critically assessed to enable understanding of how the statistical models generated actually work, and how their flaws can be eliminated. Perhaps AI is not a threat because it is likely to become too independent of man, rather because it is still too dependent on man.

 

Gilberto Corbellini
Scientific Director, Festival della Scienza Medica

INTELLIGENCE OF MEDICINE

The Intelligence of Medicine belongs to the broader concept of intelligence of health but, because of its particular aspects, it can be examined independently.
This subject matter is both stimulating and potentially ambiguous. It is certainly worth investigating in depth because of its long and fascinating history. While I cannot cover the topic fully here, I will give an overview of the topics involved.
Where does this specific form of intelligence find its home?
Without doubt, where thought can be expressed freely and leads to advancement in research, and not where thought descends into superstition or compliance.
This human intelligence, whatever the form it has taken throughout the centuries, dwells with particular forcefulness in the places of knowledge that were (and are) universities. This is where thought and language were born and have gradually risen to higher levels. Alongside thought and language, are the methods that have, step by step, defined the concept of “professionalism” linked to the basic needs of people and their communities, upheld through time by the growing world of technology.

Even back in the Middle Ages, the free intelligence of medicine was visible and connected to a knowledge that we can certainly call philosophical, as it channelled rationality and expressed freedom of thought.
At the end of the 13th century, Bologna was at the centre of this meeting of medicine and philosophy. Gentile da Cingoli made the association between arts, which he saw as philosophy, and medical studies, where Taddeo Alderotti has already left his mark.
This unusual alliance, as it was described, between doctors and philosophers gave rise to a new model of medical studies 2.

Over the centuries, this model was shown to be efficient and effective and was careful to interpret the specific requirements of every historical timeframe, despite several interruptions.
In the light of this, I wish to outline the needs/urgencies found in today’s western society – because it is clear that these needs/urgencies are closely bound to our economic, social, political and cultural climate. In developing countries, the topics to address, the ones we must understand, interpret and resolve, are certainly not the same as those of the old continent, or Canada, or Japan or the USA.
An ageing population had led to an increase in illnesses directly linked to longer life expectancy. These same illnesses were much rarer a mere one hundred years ago – if only because most of us died before reaching the age where we are more likely to develop them – but now they are affecting more and more people. Here, we are facing emerging new drug resistant viruses and bacteria, the return of – we thought- eradicated diseases linked to an uncontrolled spreading of pseudo-scientific beliefs, joined by an increasing mistrust in science’s capacity to improve human life. These are just some of the topics that are taking an impregnable hold in our society and are the new challenges for a medicine that must be ever more intelligent.
In order to respond to this increasing complexity, the intelligence of health must include proposals where facilities are more and more advanced, doctors more adaptable and families more involved and knowledgeable.
To achieve this, we must steadily apply the fruits of technological development and our improved drugs. At the same time, we must comply properly and correctly with the need to share objectives and demands, allied in our respect for the person who, in turn, must learn to respect that which society can offer.

The intelligence of medicine differs from intelligence applied to other areas of science. It is not merely the expression of pure research, it also embodies treatment and exercises a social function.
For physics and chemistry, this intelligence can have a single, continuative interlocutor (space, particles, elements), but in medicine, it must start from the individual scientist, who must be fully conscious of the place in medical practice held by the doctor-patient relationship and that between doctor and society.
This intelligence must interact with potential tools, because, in today’s world, it is no longer acceptable to take a passive behaviour towards equipment, instruments, pharmaceutical products and technologies that interface with medicine. We must make it clear that we are dealing, on the one hand, with human beings and their wealth of intelligence, and on the other with tools made through human intellect. By their very nature, these tools work at the behest of humanity, for the good of patients and doctors.

The word “intelligence” has a two-fold meaning. It indicates the set of physical and mental faculties that allow human beings to think, comprehend or explain facts and actions, to elaborate abstract models of reality, to understand and be understood by others and to judge. Intelligence is also is the fact or possibility of understanding something and being understood.
Intelligence is, therefore, an intrinsic feature (when we engage in producing something to be understood) and an extrinsic feature (when we understand something outside our own self).
The intelligence of medicine is a concept belonging to the latter case. It implies the partial reproduction of our own innate intellectual activity. This is achieved through tools that are continuously evolving, as well as our human ability to understand the dynamics of health and sickness, and to act in a way that is most likely to protect our own health and that of others.
In this second meaning, the concept of intelligence of medicine is as old as humankind. When we first made our appearance on our planet, we had to put in place behaviour such as to determine what systems would truly be effective in ensuring our survival.
The first meaning of intelligence of health is, on the contrary, relatively new, and has its roots in the last century, when the first computer programmes were used to solve complex problems.
The development of intelligence – with its staunchly rooted offshoot artificial intelligence – meant that the tools linked to this new reality became used in all the fields of human knowledge, especially and to our greatest benefit in the medical sphere.

The intelligence of medicine is progressing, for example, more and more obviously in cancer treatment, where patients’ life expectancy has shot up dramatically following the advancements in innovative therapies and highly effective, personalised diagnostics, which only a few decades ago were beyond our imagination.
The intelligence of medicine has also upturned the surgical sector, with the arrival of robots that, while unable to carry out surgical procedures totally independently, provide essential assistance working alongside medical teams. Backed by this technology, surgeons can operate more effectively and with greater safety, the outcome is better and there are fewer complications post-surgery.
Lastly, the intelligence of medicine has opened the doors to new possibilities in the field of genomics, and we can use information extrapolated from our own gene pool more and more effectively to prevent and cure illnesses, unlocking new therapeutic possibilities.

In the light of this brief outline, when we talk about intelligence of medicine, we must make this observation: “The pervasive technology that defines our era places us in front of a non-sensical dilemma on the relationship between man and machine” 2.

I believe that we can all share this statement. Machines will always be complementary to our life, and talking about intelligence augmented through technology is an assertion that must be accepted in a secular perspective. This progress implies greater power and potential. Over the next decades, it will allow human intelligence to voice its entirety and completeness and so express its creativity more fully.

Naturally, none of us is able, for the moment, to know what will happen down the line with artificial intelligence and robotics. Each of us, however, knows or should know, how much we can ask of scientists, especially in these extraordinary times.
Scientists know and want to address what is happening. These are not sudden discoveries that are sprung on them, but developments in knowledge, and are the outcome of human work and greater knowledge. Living, knowing and investigating are all tightly liked and flow throughout human history. Human intelligence has never stopped evolving…
We cannot decide to simply let life take its course, leaving it to others (who are in any case only a few) the task to develop research sectors that we expect will, in future, become necessary, if we want to apply the full potential of such advanced discoveries.
The decisive moment has come to verify their effectiveness. We can create and govern change, retaining what we must preserve and welcoming the new in an informed and constructive manner, without being mere passive recipients.
In this context, the mission of intelligence is, therefore, intrinsically linked to the sectors and the many subject matters involved.
Everything that belongs to sectors dedicated to humanity must be given double consideration, because the development of human intelligence is the prerequisite for the development of everything else.
We must not underestimate empathy, which must be practiced as an essential part of medicine, so much so as to be placed in first place. Apart from discoveries and their importance, what is important is the relationship that must exist between patient, doctor, the patient’s treatment and the management of health and medicine, up to end of life and dignity in dying.
The revolutionary events that have enveloped the world of medicine through technological developments mean that, in some cases, the situation is dramatic. Treating illness is so strongly dependant on new instruments and technologies geared towards finding the symptoms of diseases, and so offer diagnosis, that it may erode or even cripple the doctor’s role.
We can already see that the rapid pace of technological evolution at the service of the intelligence of health has set in motion a certain process of ambivalence. As is often the case, intelligence can be a double-edged sword.

Fabio Roversi-Monaco
President, Genus Bononiae. Musei nella Città

[1] C. Crisciani, L’alchimia dal Medioevo al Rinascimento: scientia o ars? in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa. Le Scienze, vol. 5, a cura di A. Clericuzio, G. Ernst, with the collaboration of M. Conforti, Treviso, 2008, pp. 111-128.
[2] From an interview by Dr. Luca Altieri, Director of Marketing IBM

NOBEL READINGS
John Gurdon, Aaron Ciechanover, Tomas Linhdal: these are the names of the three Nobel prize winners who will speak to us about their discoveries in this edition of the festival together with the methods which enabled them to achieve fundamentally important goals in the fields of medical, clinical and chemical research. A series of not-to-be-missed appointments against the magnificent backdrop of the places in which the first university in the world was founded.

 

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES
The young and very young have always been the centre of the Medical Science Festival’s interest. This year will once again feature initiatives for schools students of all levels and type: a fascinating anatomy lesson at the Teatro Anatomico dell’Archiginnasio for primary school students; the discovery of the changes in the body during adolescence for middle school pupils; the struggle against antimicrobial resistance; the cross-media Geni a bordo event and the La Parola ai giurati format on a bioethics case inspired by a true story for secondary school students.

 

INTELLIGENCE OF HEALTH
The focus of the fifth edition of the Festival of Medical Science is intelligence of health: the new scientific and technological frontiers in clinical research, cure and prevention will be analysed. Special attention will be paid to themes such as digital platforms for the gathering of clinical and health data, IoT (Internet of Things) applications and artificial intelligence in medicine via a discussion on the role of these tools and methodologies for the development of effective treatment in disease cure and health promotion.

 

NEUROSCIENCES
The neurosciences have always been a central theme at the festival: via contributions from scientists from all the world’s universities, themes such as consciousness disturbances, human brain mapping, the genetic and neuro-biological bases of human intelligence and sleep disturbances will be analysed in an attempt to respond to the many questions arising in the context of the functioning of the human brain.

 

PREVENTION, PHARMACOLOGY AND TOXICOLOGY
What techniques can be used to prevent the onset of conditions and diseases? What good practices can be made use of to look after the health of our bodies? What resources can be martialled by the institutions to appropriately disseminate medical and scientific information for health prevention? All these questions will be the focus of a series of sessions centring on themes such as cognitive psychology, correct scientific communication methods, pharmaceutical research and appropriate lifestyles to achieve and safeguard health.

 

INTERSECTIONS
One of the prerogatives of the Medical Science Festival has always been to analyse the scientific world’s contents and discoveries via a multi-disciplinary approach: once again a multiplicity of enquiry sectors will be represented on medicine’s present and future, passing through disciplines such as dentistry, urology and orthopaedics and analysing problems linked to the circulation of information in the health field.

 

HOST COUNTRY
After China, Germany and Mexico, this year the festival’s host country will be Spain: once again the initiative takes the form of an occasion with which to compare and contrast the health systems of the various countries, analysing the various management models relating to the management of health related issues.

 

SPECIAL EVENTS
A packed calendar of side events has been an opportunity to study themes linked to the world of medical science via a different and curious approach: the 2019 Festival will accompany us in a historic and anthropological reading of the Pizzica and a series of concerns by the greatest musical institutions of the day.

Aaron Ciechanover
Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2004

Aaron Ciechanover was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2004 after discovering the ubiquitin system which disposes from the body faulty proteins that if accumulated cause many diseases. He is Professor at the Unit of Biochemistry and Director of the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in Medical Sciences of Technion in Haifa (Israel).

John Gurdon
Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2012

Dr. John Gurdon did his undergraduate work in Zoology in the University of Oxford and later a one-year postdoctoral position at CalTech in USA. He returned to Oxford and became a university lecturer in Embryology. In 1971 he moved to the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory in Cambridge, continuing his work on Amphibian developmental biology. In 1983 he moved to the University of Cambridge as John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Cell Biology. He co-founded a research Institute of Developmental and Cancer biology with Professor Laskey as co-chairman and was Chairman of this Institute until 2002. During his career Dr. Gurdon concentrated on nuclear transplantation in the frog Xenopus. He has also carried out a range of experiments with this material, discovering the value of messenger RNA microinjection, mechanisms of response to morphogen gradients, and, most recently, mechanisms of nuclear reprogramming by Xenopus oocytes and eggs. Dr. Gurdon served as Master of Magdalene College Cambridge from 1995-2002 and has received various recognitions and awards.

Tomas Robert Lindahl
Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2015

Fellow of Royal Society is a Swedish-born British scientist. He received a PhD degree and an MD degree from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. After obtaining his research doctorate, Lindahl did postdoctoral research at Princeton University and Rockefeller University. He was professor of medical chemistry at the University of Gothenburg 1978–82. After moving to the United Kingdom he joined the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) as a researcher in 1981. From 1986 to 2005 he was the first Director of Cancer Research UK’s Clare Hall Laboratories in Hertfordshire, since 2015 part of the Francis Crick Institute. In 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for mechanistic studies of DNA repair” (jointly awarded to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar), in 2010 Copley Medal, in 2009 INSERM Prix Etranger, in 2007 Royal Society’s Royal Medal. Member of Academia Europea. Member of Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and Member of the Accademia delle Scienze of Bologna.

Sergio Abrignani

Sergio Abrignani is an MD with a PhD, who worked on researching and developing new medications and antiviral vaccines in biotechnology companies in Switzerland, Italy and California from 1986 to 2006. He returned to Italy in 2007, where he is Professor of General Pathology at the University of Milano and Director of the Romeo and Enrica Invernizzi National Institute of Molecular Genetics, a non-profit translational research institute that develops projects aimed at identifying new biomarkers and therapeutic targets to improve secondary and tertiary prevention of chronic autoimmune, infectious or neoplastic diseases. His most recent research focuses on precision immunotherapy in oncology.

Maurizio Agostini

Maurizio Agostini, graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the Sapienza University of Rome, leads the Technical and Scientific Direction of Farmindustria and coordinates the Technical and Scientific Working Groups of Farmindustria. Lecturer in training courses and masters in Italian universities on clinical trials, regulatory activities, pharmacovigilance. He has participated in many scientific and regulatory initiatives organized in collaboration with Universities, Associations and Scientific Societies. Speaker and moderator of several conferences focused on issues concerning the pharmaceutical sector. He is author of publications on Good Laboratory Practice and Good Clinical Practice.

Stefano Aliberti

Stefano Aliberti is Professor of respiratory diseases at the University of Milan and pneumologist at the Policlinico of Milan, where he directs the bronchiatry and non-tubercular pulmonary microbacteriosis programme. His clinical activity and research are mainly in the field of respiratory infections, both acute and chronic, in Italy and internationally. He is Director of the Italian observatories for adult patients with bronchiectasis and non-tubercular pulmonary mycobacteriosis. He has carried out important roles on the scientific and educational committee of the European Respiratory Society, and in 2012 founded the EMBARC European Network which has contributed to increasing scientific and clinical community awareness of a once neglected disease – bronchiectasis.

Marcello Allegretti
Chief Scientific Officer Dompé

Marcello Allegretti is Chief Scientific Officer at Dompé. He heads the firm’s research and development strategy and its pre-clinical and clinical drug development from identifying active substances to authorisation for market issue including managing relations with the national and international regulatory bodies. He graduated in medical chemistry from Rome’s La Sapienza University and has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1988 and Società Chimica Italiana since 2006. After a period as a university researcher, he joined Dompé and rose through the ranks from team leader to research director and then his current post. Alongside his work at the firm he has taught at several universities and kept up intense scientific work testified to by a great many publications and forty scientific articles. He also has over thirty international patents.

Sabrina Angelini

Sabrina Angelini graduated in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies. She has a PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology and is Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology of the University of Bologna. Her main area of study is how alterations in DNA sequence and expression variation in RNA are involved in individual predisposition to disease and clinical response to drug treatment, particularly in the oncology field. She has written over 60 publications in prestigious international journals.

Maurizio Averna

Maurizio Averna is Full Professor in Internal Medicine at Palermo University since 2005. He is currently: director of AOUP in Palermo; U.O.C. in clinical respiratory and urgent medicine; the Regional Rare Metabolic Diseases Reference Centre; Regional reference Centre in Genetic Dyslipidemia and the Diagnostic Molecular Biology U.O.S-CLADIBIOR. In addition to busy clinical work together with research project co-ordination, Maurizio Averna has written a number of books and book chapters and has published 382 articles in Italian and international scientific journals. He has also taken part in organising various scientific conferences.

Giovanni Barbara

Medical surgeon and specialist in internal medicine and gastroenterology, Giovanni Barbara trained in Bologna and London and completed a three year research fellowship at McMaster University in Canada. Professor Barbara’s main area of scientific interest is clinical and molecular research in the sector of functional and organic gastroenterology disorders, neuro-gastroenterology of the gastrointestinal microbiota and intestinal inflammatory diseases. He works with many Italian and international universities and has written many articles for the main international journals. Professor Barbara has won international prizes and awards including the prestigious Master Award in Gastroenterology from the American Gastroenterological Association. He is currently a member of the Rome Foundation board of directors and president of the European Society of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (ESNM).

Arnaldo Benini

Arnaldo Benini is Emeritus Professor of Neurosurgery at University of Zurich. Collaborator of the Sunday Cultural Supplement of SOLE24ORE for science subjects. Among his recent publications: Che cosa sono io Il cervello alla ricerca di sé stesso (Garzanti, Milano, 2009); La coscienza imperfetta Le neuroscienze e il significato della vita (Garzanti, Milano, 2012); Neurobiologia del tempo (Cortina, Milano, 2017); La mente fragile Il Problema dell’Alzheimer (Cortina, Milano, 2018).

Roberto Bernabei

Roberto Bernabei is full professor in internal medicine at Cattolica University and director of Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli’s Department of Gerontological, Geriatric and Physiatric Sciences in Rome. Since 1998 he has been visiting Professor at the Community Health Department of Brown University School of Medicine, Providence, RI. He has directed a great many training courses in geriatric assistance and been: president of the B.Sc in occupational therapy at Cattolica University; director of the Cattolica’s Specialisation School in Geriatrics; board member of the European Academy for Medicine of Ageing. He has also been scientific director of many Ministry of Health ex art. 12 projects; member of the Ministry of Health’s Alzheimer panel; member of the Higher Health Council from 2002 to 2005 and 2006 to 2009 and president of Società Italiana di Gerontologia e Geriatria. His fields of interest are multi-dimensional geriatric assessments (VMD), models of assistance for fragile elderly people and geriatric pharmaco-epidemiology. He has published more than 200 articles in high impact journals and written 8 books and 20 book chapters.

Nicoletta Bernasconi

Nicoletta Bernasconi (Gallarate, 1969) is responsible for Intesa Sanpaolo’s relations with universities and schools. She graduated in Economics and Banking Sciences from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and obtained an M.A in human resources and communications from MIP – Politecnico di Milano. After working for several years in Gruppo Intesa San Paolo’s training bodies, where she was responsible for both professional and managerial training, she currently works in developing its relationship with universities and schools in the context of governing institutional relationships and external communications. She teaches at Università dell’Insubria on its three year degree course in economics and management and its specialist degree course in corporate economics, law and finance.

Robert Böhm

Robert Böhm is an Assistant Professor of Decision Analysis at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He is a behavioral scientist with interests in human decision making and behavior in various domains. For instance, he is an international expert on the structural and psychological determinants of vaccination behavior, in particular vaccine hesitancy.

Luigi Bolondi

Luigi Bolondi, previously Full Professor of Internal Medicine at University of Bologna and Director of the Internal Medicine unit at Policlinico S. Orsola – Malpighi of Bologna and of its Specialisation School in Internal Medicine, has also been President of the University’s Med School. He has published a range of monographs in the fields of Gastroenterology and Ultrasound. He has published more than 350 times in PubMed and has an H index of = 83 which puts him in the 50 Top Italian Scientists in the clinical field.

Claudio Borghi

Claudio Borghi has been Full Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Bologna since 2005, and Director of the Medicine Operative Unit of the Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi of Bologna; he is also Director of the Specialisation School of Emergency Medicine and President of the Società Medica-Chirurgica of Bologna. He is also Member of the Scientific Council of the International Society of Hypertension and of the European Society of Hypertension.

Lorenzo Breschi

Full Professor and Director of the Conservative Medicine and Prosthetics Department at the University of Bologna, Associate Editor of the “Journal of Adhesive Dentistry”, active member of the Accademia Italiana di Conservativa and fellow of the Academy of Dental Materials. He is President of the European Federation of Conservative Dentistry, International Academy of Adhesive Dentistry, Accademia Italiana di Conservativa and Past President of the Dental Materials Group of the International Association for Dental Research and of the Academy of Dental Materials. He has spoken at many Italian and international conferences and written more than 200 articles published in international journals.

Simone Bressan

Born in 1981 in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Simone Bressan works in the field of the relationship between digital revolution and communication for both work and passion. He does consulting work on digital matters for organizations and public and private institutions. He launched his own start-up company, Zipster, an aggregator of news with an anti-fake news filter, in 2017.

Dario Bressanini

Dario Bressanini is Assistant Professor at the Department of Science and High Technology of the University of Insubria (Como). He is holder of the section Pentole e provette on the review Le Scienze, concerning the scientific exploration of food. He published Pane e Bugie (Chiarelettere), Le bugie nel carrello (Chiarelettere) and Contronatura (Rizzoli) with Beatrice Mautino. He is the author of the popular blog Scienza in Cucina. ​

Eugenio Brunocilla

Eugenio Brunocilla is Professor of Urology at the University of Bologna. He directs the Urology Clinic of the Policlinico S. Orsola Malpighi of Bologna and the Postgraduate School of Urology. He is a Member of the European Board of Urology FEBU. He has performed over 14,000 operations as principal surgeon and written over 300 scientific publications for national and international magazines.

Enrico Bucci

Enrico M. Bucci is an Italian Researcher who works in the field of biomedical Big Data analysis and scientific research integrity, a sector in which he has become famous for his work as advisor in several high profile cases in the US, Germany, UK and Italy. Since 2016, he is Adjunct Professor of Biology of Complex Systems and Director of the Biology of Complex Systems programme at the Sbarro Health Research Organization, part of the College of Science and Technology (Temple University).
Since 2017, he has been working as advisor for the Commission on Research Ethics and Bioethics. Since the same year, he is responsible for training courses of Research Integrity at the IMT School of Lucca and advisor of the same subject for the FLI Institut of Jena (Germany). At the end of 2017, he was awarded the “2017 National Italian American Foundation – Giovan Giacomo Giordano Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award for Ethics and Creativity in Medical Research” for his work. As a consultant, he has worked and still works for several scientific journals examining all papers submitted for peer review to identify cases of possible manipulation of images or data. His work has been described in several national and international media, including “Nature” and RAI.

Mauro Caliani

Mauro Caliani is analyst director of the complex structure U.O.C. Pianificazione innovazione tecnologica e sviluppo reti abilitanti for USL Toscana Sud Est, for which he co-ordinates and manages human and engineering resources in support of change, redesign and unification in administrative and health processes. He is a member of Società Italiana della Telemedicina’s advisory board. He has a range of teaching experience, especially at hospitals and health offices relating to electronics and telemedicine.

Laura Calzà

Medical surgeon and specialist in endocrinology, Laura Calzà studies degenerative disorders of the central nervous system and innovative therapeutic solutions. She works at the Fondazione IRET-ONLUS laboratories in Ozzano Emilia where she is scientific director. She has been graduate technician at Milan University, then associate professor of human physiology at Cagliari University and, since 1999, associate professor of veterinary anatomy at Bologna University. She is currently full professor at Bologna University where she teaches cognitive science, embryology and regenerative medicine.

Giorgio Cantelli Forti

Giorgio Cantelli Forti is Professor Emeritus at the Alma Mater Studiorum-University of Bologna, past-President of the Società Italiana di Farmacologia (SIF) and Chairman of the Accademia Nazionale di Agricoltura. His scientific activity as pharmacologist is documented by over 680 publications, 265 of which full texts in international journals with over 4600 quotations, 39 book chapters, 53 conference proceedings, 16 short communications and 324 communications to national and international conferences.

Ettore Capoluongo

Ettore Capoluongo is Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology at the Catholic University of Rome. He is the Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Diagnostics and Genomics at the A. Gemelli Foundation Teaching and Research of Rome. He also holds his position of coordinator of genomic research lab at John Paul II Foundation of Catholic University (Campobasso, Italy). Professor Capoluongo is molecular geneticist whose job interests are mainly focused on cancer diagnostics and biomarkers identification. He is the Coordinator of two groups of the Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SiBioC) and he has been appointed as Member of the Committee on Clinical Molecular Biology Curriculum (C-CMBC) of the IFCC. He has published over 215 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Alessandro Capucci

Alessandro Capucci is professor of cardiology at Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona and director of its cardiology clinic and specialisation school in cardiovascular apparatus diseases. He is an expert in electrophysiology and cardiac cell studies as well as mapping systems primarily related to electrophysiology and works in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics assessments.

Salvatore Cardellicchio

Salvatore Cardellicchio is a Specialist in respiratory diseases, allergology, clinical immunology and sport medicine. He teaches on Florence University’s Medicine and Surgery Degree and its Specialisation School in Respiratory Medicine. He has published 15 articles in Italian and international pneumology journals. He is currently Co-ordinator of the Gruppo di Studio Educazionale, Prevenzione ed Epidemiologia at the Associazione Italiana Pneumologi Ospedalieri per il Tabagismo and head of the Careggi Centro Antifumo.

Gianpaolo Carrafiello

Gianpaolo Carrafiello is full professor of diagnostic imaging, radiotherapy and neuroradiology at the University of Milan, President of the M.Sc in Diagnostic Techniques and director of the School of Specialization in Nuclear Medicine at the same university. He is also director of the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the Polo San Paolo University Hospital in Milano. He has performed over 30,000 interventional radiology operations in the vascular, extravascular and oncological fields. He is the author of over 500 articles published in national and international journals and 24 book chapters and sits on a number of publishing boards, as well as acting as reviewer and guest editor.

Giulia Carreras

Giulia Carreras, PhD, is a Researcher in Biostatistics at the Istituto per lo Studio, la Prevenzione e la Rete Oncologica in Florence and at the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine at the University of Florence. She has written many articles in the field of primary prevention and biostatistics. Her work has focused mainly on evaluating the impact of exposure to risk factors, multiple imputation and the analysis of clinical trials.

Gianluca Carta

Multi-instrumentalist, Gianluca Carta first debuted in popular music in southern Italy in 2000, playing with a range of formations (Paranza Ammiscata, Consorzio Popolare, Yule de Sonos). He works with directors such as Mamadou Dioume and Elena Guerrini to create original music for theatrical performances. As a musician, he has taken part in several workshops on southern Italian dance for adults and children and held workshops on Sardinian music and drums in schools. He is a manufacturer of frame drums. Motivated by music’s therapeutic value, in recent years he has begun using music therapy, becoming a holistic sound operator.

Domenico Celiberti

Domenico Celiberti began playing the violin at the age of 9 at a private academy and at the age of 17 joined the Pelagus – Mauro Giuliani orchestra which he played with for several years. A lover of traditional music, since he was a teenager he has spent time with players and singers in order to learn how to play tambourine, melodeon, chordophone and zampogna and sing. For more than ten years he has been doing ethnomusicology research with the last elderly players of these instruments in Puglia, taking an active part in some traditional door to door music in the Itria and Murgia valleys. Over the years he has worked with various musicians in the popular context, playing in a great many festivals in Europe and the Middle East.

Paola Ceroni

A professor whose research work is in photochemistry in supra molecular and photo-active nano crystal systems with applications in energy imaging and conversion (solar luminescent concentrators, artificial photosynthesis and photocatalysis), Paola Ceroni is head of a European project ERC Starting Grant (PhotoSi) and, more recently, of a ERC Proof of Concept (SiNBioSys) project on the development of luminescent silicon nanocrystals for the conversion of solar energy and bioimaging.

Lorenzo Chiari

Lorenzo Chiari is a graduate in Electronic Engineering (1993) and holds a Doctorate in bio-engineering research (1997). He has been Full Professor at Bologna University since 2016 and his research work is in the biomedical engineering field. His research interests focus in particular on technologies for rehabilitation and healthy, active ageing, the functional assessment of movement and the risk of falling with wearable sensors and neuromechanical analysis of posture and movement in physiological and pathological conditions. Since September 2016 he has been managing CIRI Scienze della Vita e Tecnologie della Salute and is a member of the University Salute and eHealth group.

Lucio Ildebrando Maria Cocco

Lucio Ildebrando Maria Cocco has been Full Professor of Human Anatomy at the University of Chieti since 1986, and Full Professor of the same subject at the University of Bologna since 1990. He was awarded with “The titular Litchfield Lectureship 2016-2017” by Oxford University and with the “Journal of Lipid Research Lecturership 2016” by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology/American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He is the Director of the Laboratorio di Trasduzione del Segnale at the Department of Biomedical sciences at the University of Bologna and he is Editor-in-Chief of the series “Advances in Biological Regulation” (Elsevier Publ.).

Claudio Colaiacomo

Dr. Claudio Colaiacomo holds a degree and a Master in Physics for the Stevens Institute of Technology in the US and MBA from at the Trieste School of Management and a Master in Contemplative Neurosciences at the University of Pisa. In his earlier career, he has worked as a researcher in the US and Austria after moving to Elsevier, where he covered several managerial roles. He entertains relations with the top management several research institutions in Southern Europe and the media with the aim of exploring and communicating synergies and new ways to serve the scientific community. He is an expert of the publishing industry, his interest span widely from History to Philosophy. He is a speaker and published author himself.

Stefano Collina

Stefano Collina is Senator of the Republic and vice-president of the 12th Hygiene and Health commission. He was president of AICC – Associazione Italiana Città della Ceramica – from 2001 to 2017 and is currently president of the Gruppo Europeo di Cooperazione Territoriale Città della Ceramica (GECT AEuCC). On the occasion of the political elections of 2013 he was elected Democratic Party senator and made member of the 10th permanent commission (industry, commerce, tourism) before taking part in the 1st permanent commission (constitutional affairs). In the 2018 elections he was of the only seven senators from the Democratic Party to be elected from single member constituencies. In the new legislature he was once again appointed to the 1st permanent commission and in March 2018 he was elected vice-president of the 12th permanent commission (hygiene and health).

Fulvio Colombo

Fulvio Colombo has been Director of the Departmental Andrology Unit at Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi of Bologna for ten years. He teaches at the Urology Specialisation School of the University of Bologna and at the Urology and Andrology M.Sc. of the University of Trieste. Member of the main Italian and European urology and andrology scientific societies, he has authored and co-authored more than 250 publications of a scientific, educational and popular nature. He is the author of scientific videos which have won prizes and acknowledgements in Italy and Europe. He regularly organises and chairs residential genital reconstruction and prosthetic implantology surgery training courses. He is regularly invited to speak and chair round tables and symposiums

Simone Colombo

Simone Colombo is Senior Manager Community & Social Business at Logotel, Service Design Company in Milan. He interprets the challenges of service design with care and methodology both for those within firms and those outside them, with a special focus on the infrastructural design, education and accompanying transformation processes spheres. With a philosophy background, Simone Colombo applies a multi-disciplinary approach to projects which starts with the observation of use contexts in which specific needs are generated in order to design responses and solutions capable of impacting significantly on people’s lives and firms’ strategies. A project’s success? It is a matter of the use people make of it.

Fiorenzo Conti

Fiorenzo Conti is Full Professor of Human Physiology at the Marche Polytechnic University, and Director of the Centro di Neurobiologia dell’invecchiamento of the IRCCS INRCA (Ancona). His research focuses on the molecular organization of the cerebral cortex and its alterations in neuropsychiatric diseases. He was the President of the Società Italiana di Neuroscienze.

Lella Costa

After studying literature and graduating from Accademia dei Filodrammatici, Lella Costa’s theatre début was in 1980 with the Repertorio monologue, i.e. the orphan girl and the stockings. It was the beginning of a trajectory which has brought her into contact with contemporary writers and she works on the radio and theatre-cabaret and has become one of the best known actresses in Italy. Together with Massimo Cirri and Giorgio Gallione she has co-written many of the shows she has acted in. Over recent years she has acted in Ferite a morte, a multi-award winning show on the extremely topical issue of gender violence and murders of women. Her theatre work has been accompanied for years by diverse and important radio and TV appearances and a constant civil commitment. In 2017 she presented the special TV programme Mariangela! (Rai Cultura) devoted to the life and career of Mariangela Melato. In 2018 she returned to Rai3 with La tv delle ragazze – Gli Stati generali 1988 2018. She is a member of the Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche di Pollenzo’s board of directors.

Claudio Cricelli

Claudio Cricelli is a General Medical Doctor at the Florence Azienda Sanitaria where he works to promote a strategic role of family doctors in the national health service. He has been General Director of the Società Italiana di Medicina Generale Journal and Director and Project Head at the Health Search Research Institute in Florence. He has also acted as President of the Unione Europea dei Medici di Famiglia and is currently President of the Società Italiana di Medicina Generale. On 1st August 2016 he was awarded Medaglia al Merito della Sanità Pubblica by decree of the President of the Republic after nomination by the Department of Health.

Francesco Cucca

Francesco Cucca is Director of the CNR Istituto di Ricerca Genetica e Biomedica (IRGB) and Full Professor of Genetic Medicine at University of Sassari. He co-ordinates international projects including the European Union funded ImmunoAgeing project within Horizon 2020 announcement and the Sardinia project funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH, USA). His research work comprises more than 200 peer reviewed studies as senior and corresponding author in front rank journals such as Science, Cell, Nature Genetics and the New England Journal of Medicine. His principal research work relates to studies designed to throw light on the aetiopathogenesis bases of multifactorial disease, and autoimmune diseases in particular; studies designed to define the genetic control of quantitative traits such as haematic levels in immune cells and cytokines to highlight genetic overlap with illness risk associations and identify intermediate phenotypes and medical targets; and genetic population studies designed to define the genetic structure of the Sardinians in the context of European genetic variability.

Luigi De Gennaro

Luigi De Gennaro teaches Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology at La Sapienza University, Rome, and co-ordinates the university’s PhD in Psychology and Cognitive Science. He is Director of the Sleep Laboratory of the Department of Psychology at La Sapienza University and of the Service for the Supervision and Quality of Sleep and secretary of the Italian Association of Sleep Medicine (AIMS). He carries out a wide range of scientific publishing activities and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Sleep Research. He has written about 600 publications, more than 150 of which in international peer-reviewed journals. He works in scientific dissemination in neuroscience and, in particular, sleep and its pathologies.

Michele De Luca

Michele De Luca is Full Professor of Biochemistry, Director of the “Stefano Ferrari” Regenerative Medicine Centre and Director of the Interdepartmental Stem Cell Center and Regenerative Medicine of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He is also Scientific Director of Holostem Terapie Avanzate Srl.
He is author of over 120 scientific articles published in major international journals and has spoken at more than 200 international conferences and symposiums.

Ian Deary

Ian J. Deary practised psychiatry before moving to academic psychology. He studies human intelligence, including the effects of ageing, and its impact on people’s lives. He is Professor of Differential Psychology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He is Director of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology. He is Director of the Lothian Birth Cohort studies.

Massimo Delledonne

Full Professor of Genetics at the University of Verona. From 1990 to 2000 he spent several study periods abroad, to study molecular genetic – in particular the genetic bases of the resistance to diseases. Since 2011 Massimo Delledonne has been working mainly on sequencing and interpreting the human genome as applied to clinical medicine and performs a great deal of scientific dissemination work designed to explain how interpreting human genome is profoundly changing medicine which is increasingly accompanying clinical data with genetic data to improve diagnosis, cure and medical strategies. Since 2017 he has been part of Taxon Expedition, an organisation working to educate to scientific discovery with expeditions to remote parts of the planet in search of new species.

Giovambattista Desideri

Giovambattista Desideri is associate professor in internal medicine at Università degli Studi dell’Aquila and director of its Specialisation School in Geriatrics. He has worked in various institutional capacities within bodies such as the academic senate, at which he is a representative of associate professors and member of the research commission. He has produced around one hundred published works nationally and internationally as well as a dozen popular scientific books. His work in the geriatrics and internal medicine field has led to him becoming ordinary member of the Società Italian di Medicina Interna and its regional managerial board as well as member of the Società Italiana di Geriatria and Gerontologia and president of its inter-regional Abruzzo-Molise section. He also reviews for various international publications.

Alberto Corrado Di Martino

Alberto Di Martino was appointed Adjunct Professor in Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the University of Bologna this year. Already a University Researcher at Rome’s University Campus Bio-Medico, since 2017 he has been Adjunct Assistant Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He has written more than 150 publications. His clinical and research activities primarily include studies on spinal pathologies and their treatment, hip and knee pathology, osteoncological pathology and orthopaedic surgery applications of stem cells, biomaterials and bone substitutes.

Gino Leonardo Di Mitri

Gino Leonardo Di Mitri was born in Brindisi in 1957. He graduated from University of Lecce in Theoretical Philosophy with a thesis on logic in the social sciences in Theodor W. Adorno and Karl R. Popper and then completed his education at University of Padova. He then completed a Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies in History of Medicine at University of Genève and a PhD in History of Science at University of Bari. He specialises in 18th century natural science thinking and practice and is currently working at University of Lecce’s Department of Medieval Historical Studies from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Era. Di Mitri has written Storia biomedica del tarantismo nel XVIII secolo, published by Olschki in Florence in 2006.

Marco Domenicali

Marco Domenicali is associate professor in internal medicine at the Department of medical Science and Surgery. He has been visiting research fellow at the University of Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic Hormonal Laboratory. After gaining two research doctorates in applied physiology and physiology and ultrasonology, he was appointed internal medicine researcher at Bologna University.

Giorgio Ercolani

Giorgio Ercolani has been Adjunct Professor in General Surgery at the University of Bologna since 2014 and since 2016 he has been Director of General Surgery and Oncology operations at Forlì hospital (Emilia Romagna AUSL) and, since July 2017, director of Forlì’s Department of General Surgery. He has performed more than 4000 operations using both traditional techniques and robotic laparoscopy. He has published two books (Trapianto d’organo solido and Colangiocarcinoma) and written more than 300 scientific publications for international magazines regarding his research on oncological surgery, particularly hepato-blium-pancreatic surgery, and has concentrated in recent years on robotic gastroenterological surgery. He is also a reviewer for various scientific magazines of surgical interest

Cesare Faldini

Full Professor in Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the University of Bologna and Director of the Orthopaedics and Traumatology Specialisation School at the same University. He is also Director of the Orthopaedics and Traumatology Clinic of the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli. He has written more than 200 scientific publications and is a member of several prestigious scientific societies including the Società Italiana Ortopedia e Traumatologia, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Società Italiana di Chirurgia Vertebrale and the Gruppo Italiano Scoliosi. He is engaged in clinical and research work on themes relating to the treatment of serious skeletal muscle system deformities and congenital and acquired pathologies with special reference to the spine, hips, ankles and feet.

Franco Farinelli

Franco Farinelli is Head of the Department of Philosophy and Communication of the University of Bologna. Previously, he taught at the universities of Geneva, Los Angeles (UCLA), Berkeley and the Sorbonne and the École normale supérieure in Paris. His last book is Coscienza Urbana. Saggio di geografia politica, which will be published by Einaudi.

Giorgio Fedrizzi

Giorgio Fedrizzi is a vet specializing in chemistry and food technologies at the University of Bologna. He has studied chemical food security since university. At the moment, he is Head of the Bologna Food Chemical Department, the Lombardy and Emilia Romagna Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute. The Department chemically analyses food for the public authorities (i.e. USL, Vet Services and Hygiene Services for Food and Nutrition (SIAN), NAS of Carabinieri, the maritime health offices, Border Areas (USMAF) of the Ministry of Health for the whole of Italy). From 2006 to 2009 he was Expert for the Higher Health Council and he is a Member of the National Pharmacosurveillance Unit for veterinary medicinal products and of various regional and national technical groups. He has written over 120 scientific articles for publication in journals and various book chapters. He participates in various research projects on food safety and studying the relationships between environmental pollution, pregnancy and the peri-post-natal period.

Sergio Felicioni

Sergio Felicioni is a business man and acts as Italian president of Un Filo per la Vita Onlus ANAD-IICB, an Italian association of home parenteral nutrition patients affected by chronic benign intestinal insufficiency, a serious, rare and only partially understood phenomenon. Felicioni founded this association at Spello in Perugia province in 2005 for the purposes of protecting the interests of paediatric and young patients as well as adults suffering from chronic benign intestinal insufficiency. President Felicioni has always prioritised social solidarity goals for the Un Filo per la Vita association, pursuing awareness raising work for state, regional and local institutions on the problems encountered by patients in their everyday lives. Convinced exponent of the importance of increasing awareness and information, beyond the lifesaving therapy, he has long sponsored a multiplicity of Italian and international conferences. These latter congresses have attracted the most important figures in the clinical, scientific and institutional world and contributed to safeguarding the rights and demands of patients suffering from IICB and their caregivers. Un Filo per la Vita works constantly in research and at the legislative level with legal proposals campaigning to improve the quality of lives of its members and everyone affected by this disease.

Giusella Finocchiaro

Giusella Finocchiaro is Full Professor in Private Law at University of Bologna where she also directs the Internet and Social Media Law courses. She manages the Studio Legale Finocchiaro based in Bologna and Milan specialising in new technologies, privacy, e-commerce and electronic signature law. She is President of the UNCITRAL Commission on electronic commerce. She acted as President of the Commission tasked by the Department of Justice with drawing up the Italian compliance decree pursuant to European regulations regarding personal data protection. She has been President of Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna since 2015 and holds other society posts.

Letizia Gabaglio

Letizia Gabaglio is a scientific journalist, founding member of the media company Galileo Servizi Editoriali and she writes for Repubblica, Live, Le Scienze. She co-authored with Elisa Manacorda the book entitled Il fattore X. Il primo libro di medicina di genere scritto dalle donne e pensate per le donne (Castelvecchi, 2011). he edited the book “Liberi dalla meningite. Le nostre storie” (Mondadori, 2016). Letizia Gabaglio teaches on the Master’s course in Science Communication “Franco Prattico” at the International School for Advanced Studies – SISSA of Trieste.

Francesco Gabbrielli

Francesco Gabbrielli directs the Centro Nazionale per la Telemedicina e le Nuove Tecnologie Assistenziali at Rome’s Istituto Superiore di Sanità where he works in research and development in the field of technological innovations in digital health, telemedicine, robotics, artificial intelligence and big data as well as managing the centre’s programming activities. He is national vice president of Società Italiana di Telemedicina e Sanità Elettronica where he co-ordinates the SIT-ACOI study on managing technological innovations in surgery. He is member of the board, referee and editor of the monthly technical-scientific journal eHealth – Innovazione e Tecnologia in Ospedale and an independent expert at the European Commission where he works in evaluation, consultancy and technical-scientific reviewing of experimental projects in telemedicine and robotics, targeting innovation in EC funded health. He teaches at Rome Business School on its Master in E-Health Management and has published more than 100 articles in sector journals.

Francesco Maria Galassi

Francesco Maria Galassi is Principal Research Fellow at Flinders University (Australia), Visiting Academic at the University of Florence, Scientific Collaborator at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Director and co-founder of the FAPAB Research Center, doctor and paleopathologist: he deals with the history of diseases in the past and their evolution. His main discoveries include the first documented case of stroke in paleopathology in a natural mummy from the mid-1700s and the oldest case of gigantism in history. He is also known for his study of historic cold cases, amongst which his review of Julius Caesar’s disease with which he refuted the epileptic thesis stands out. He is regularly invited to give lectures and seminars in the most prestigious universities in the world. In 2017, Forbes included him in the list of the 30 most influential scientists under 30 in Europe. He is the author of popular books – including Un mondo senza vaccini? La vera storia (C1V Editions, 2017) -, specialist essays, writes for Lettura-Corriere della Sera and has participated in highly successful television broadcasts such as Superquark.

Cesare Galli

Cesare Galli is a pioneer of assisted reproduction and the cloning of farm animals and their application in the zootechnics and biomedical fields and in the conservation of animals at risk of extinction. He was the first to clone a horse (Nature, 424, 635, 2003) and he produced the first white rhino embryo (Nature Comm. (2018)9:2589 | DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04959-2). He has won many international prizes and acknowledgements, the Simmet Award for Animal Reproduction in 2008 and the Pioneer Embryo Transfer Award from AETE in 2017 being some of the most prestigious. He taught animal reproduction as Associate Professor for 12 years (2005-17) at the University of Bologna. He co-founded Avantea of which he is General Manager, Equigea (USA) and Xenothera (France).

Federica Claudia Galli

Federica Claudia Galli has been a professional journalist since 2007 and works for the TV network TRMedia – TRC TV where she presents the TV news and the Trend format which deals with trends, wellness and healthy lifestyles. For years she managed the regional In Salute broadcast which focused exclusively on medicine. She personally manages ItineRari, a blog on rare diseases, a full-blown stage by stage journey through Italy telling of cure methods and opportunities with a focus on hereditary angioedema (HAE) and primary immunodeficiencies (PID). The project is growing and has already been extended to other rare diseases. Alongside her work as a journalist, she is also a presenter. She chairs and presents events across Italy in the medical-scientific and economic fields.

Ilja Gardi

Iljia Gardi has been head of cardiology at the Imola Department of Hospital Cardiology AUSL 23 E. Romagna since 1996. Since 1997 he has been director of the Imola Dipartimento di Emergenza Urgenza AUSL. From 1999 to 2003 he was director general of the Azienda Ospedaliera Ospedale San Salvatore (Pesaro).
From 2003 to 2010 he was head of numerous international health training and development programmes in the Middle East. Since 2011 he has been Cardiology MD at Gruppo Villa Maria – Maria Cecilia Hospital Italia.

Gaetano Domenico Gargiulo

Gaetano Domenico Gargiulo is full professor of heart surgery at Bologna University – Alma Mater Studiorum, director of the Heart-Thorax-Vascular Department and manager of the Paediatric and Adolescent Complex Heart Surgery Unit at Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria S.Orsola-Malpighi and also director of the Specialisation School in Heart Surgery and co-ordinator of the Doctoral Research in Cardio Nephro Thoracic Sciences at Bologna University.

Paolo Giacomin

Paolo Giacomin is Editor of the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino and of the online newspaper ilrestodelcarlino.it. He is a journalist specialised in economics and finance and has been working with online news since 1999, when he joined the first online desk of the Poligrafici Editoriale group. In 2011, with Stefano Righi and Massimo Degli Esposti he published the book “Dieci anni con l’euro in tasca – Conversazione con Romano Prodi e Jacques Delors”.

Rita Golfieri

Rita Golfieri is Associate Professor at the University of Bologna, Director of the Hospital Operative Radiology, Diagnostics and Interventional Medicine Unit at the Policlinico S.Orsola Malpighi of Bologna and F.F. Director of the Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Prevention. She co-ordinates many clinical research projects in interventional radiology and advanced diagnostics (TC-RM). She is an active member of many scientific societies and a member of the Board of Directors of Società Italiana di Radiologia (SIRM) and reviewer for a great many academic journals. She has also spoken by invitation at over 400 congresses and national and international courses. She has written more than 700 published works and her Impact Factor is over 1000 and her H-index is 35 (source: Scopus).

Alma Maria Grandin

Alma Maria Grandin has been a professional journalist since 1994. She has a degree in communication science and a degree in obstetrics. She has taught journalism and new media and on Macerata University’s journalism M.A. She has worked at RAI since 1992 after having been appointed by Luciano Onder for Tg2 Medicina33 and Tg2 Salute. In 1999 she moved on to Gr1 where she presented the main radio news editions and created and presented a format for the young entitled News Generation – Il Giornale Radio dei Ragazzi. Since 2010 she has headed Tg1’s internet service as well as managing and presenting the Start-up and Work videochat. She acted as spokesperson for Campagna Nazionale 2018 di Cittadinanzattiva: La salute è uguale per tutti which emphasised article 117 of the Italian constitution on equal rights to health. During a nearly thirty year journalistic career she has both chaired and spoken at a great many conferences and events devoted to communication, health, medicine and scientific research and health, labour economics and education policies. She has been awarded many national and international prizes. For Rai Eri she has published: www.viraccontoiltg1.rai.it.

Francesc Graus

Dr. Francesc Graus is Emeritus investigator of the Neuroimmunology program of the Institut d’Investigació Biomèdica August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) affiliated to the Hospital Clinic, Barcelona, Spain. His area of research has been the paraneoplastic neurological syndromes and autoimmune encephalitis associated with neuronal antibodies. The research in this area led to the characterization of the anti-IgLON5 disease, an intriguing CNS disorder at the crossroad of autoimmunity and neurodegeneration.

Massimo Guidoboni

Massimo Guidoboni is one of the foremost experts in oncological immunotherapy in Italy and internationally. He has worked at Istituto Tumori di Meldola since 2009 (IRST IRCCS) and is head of its Struttura Semplice Dipartimentale di Immunoterapia e Terapia Cellulare Somatica and co-ordinator of its Centro di Risorse Biologiche. In 2012 he was Visiting Scientist at the National Institute of Health Transfusional Medicine Department’s infectious and immunogentic diseases in Bethesda in the United States. He is co-inventor of the Idiotypic vaccine patent. He has taken part in a great many national and international conferences and has published around 60 articles in Italian and international sector journals.

Patrizia Hrelia

Patrizia Hrelia is Full Professor in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Bologna. She has written over 200 articles on preventative and translational medicine. She is Past President of Società Italiana di Tossicologia, where she works to promote safety in drugs, health products and foodstuffs.

Silvana Hrelia

Silvana Hrelia is Full Professor of Biochemistry at the Schools of Pharmacy, Biotechnologies and Sports Science of the University of Bologna. She is author of over 170 articles on topics of cell biochemistry and nutrition published in international journals. She is member of the Key Thrust: “Improving health, wellbeing and longevity” of the European technological platform “Food for Life”.

Augusta Iannini

Judge and Vice-President of the Italian Data Protection Authority – Garante Privacy, Augusta Iannini has been Deputy Head of Cabinet, Director General of Criminal Justice, Head of the Justice Affairs Department and Chief Legislative Officer of the Ministry of Justice. She has published books and articles on the administrative responsibility of the corporations, mediation and conciliation and privacy. She has been awarded the “Bellisario Prize” and the “Minerva Prize” and was knighted the National Order of the Legion of Honour.

Fabrizio Landi

A biomedical engineer, Fabrizio Landi was involved in the creation of Esaote as CEO, starting in 2013, before becoming advisor to the board of directors of Gruppo Menarini, Banca CRFirenze and Leonardo/Finmeccanica. He sits on the scientific committee of El.En and is president of the Fondazione Toscana Life Sciences. He founded Panakes Partners SGR to manage venture capital funds in the life sciences sector.
He is economic advisor to the mayor of Florence.

Ornella Leone

Dr Ornella Leone is an anatomic pathologist and heads the Cardiovascular and Heart Transplant Unit at the Policlinico of S. Orsola.
Her main scientific interests are in cardiomyopathy, myocarditis, amyloidosis, heart transplants, sudden cardiac death and heart pathology, fields in which she has written over one hundred articles published in international journals on cardiology and anatomic pathology. She has also written a book entitled The Pathology of Cardiac Transplantation: a clinical and pathological perspective (Springer, 2017). She is involved in national and international scientific societies concerned with developing specialist training and drawing up protocols and pathological guidelines in the field of cardiovascular pathology and heart transplants, including the European guidelines on sudden cardiac death.

Pier Luigi Lopalco

Pier Luigi Lopalco is full professor in hygiene at Università di Pisa. From 2005 to 2015 he worked at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm where he was head of the programme for diseases which can be prevented by vaccines. He has published over 150 articles in accredited Italian and international scientific journals. He has recently contributed to the sixth edition of the volume Vaccines by S. Plotkin, W. Orenstein and P. Offit. In Italy, together with Alberto Tozzi, he has published the textbook Epidemiologia Facile (Pensiero Scientifico Editore).
In 2018 he won the national Giancarlo Dosi prize for scientific dissemination for his book Informati e Vaccinati, published by Carocci.

Nicoletta Luppi

Nicoletta Luppi, Chairwoman and Managing Director of MSD Italia, graduated in Foreign Modern Languages and Literatures with honours and, later, obtained a Master Degree in Business Administration from the Luiss School of Management of Rome. In 1993, she joined MSD and, over time, held offices of increasing responsibility until reaching the direction of the Cardiovascular-Metabolic Business Unit of MSD and Schering Plough, as well as two group companies (2003 -2010) and, in 2011, created and was at the head of the Market Access & Commercial Operations Direction, always reporting to the Managing Director. In September 2012, she became Chairwoman and Managing Director of Sanofi Pasteur MSD and, afterwards, she was appointed as Chairwoman of the Vaccine Group of Farmindustria for the two-year period 2015-2016. Since July 2015, she is Chairwoman and Managing Director of MSD Italia and, since 2016, Chairwoman of the LUISS Business School Alumni Association. In March 2017, she was chosen by AMREF as testimonial for the Social Campaign against female genital mutilation. In the same year, she was awarded the “Premio Minerva-Donna D’Eccellenza” by FederManager, a prestigious prize to a leadership supporting an environment that may encourage work-life balance and diversity.

Marco Malaguti

Marco Malaguti teaches Biochemistry and Nutrition at the Sport Science Degree of the University of Bologna. He co-ordinated the Erasmus+ SocialSport 2013 project designed to enquire into the relationship between physical activity and wellbeing. His research interests relate to studying the biochemical cell signalling paths as modulated by physical exercise and made up of nutraceutical action. He has published over 40 articles in international science journals and certain popular science books.

Marco Manfrini

Marco Manfrini has been Medical Manager at the Istituto Rizzoli since 1989 and since 2008 he has been Manager of the Centro di Riferimento Specialistico “Innovative Surgical Treatment Of Paediatric Sarcoma In The Skeletal Muscle Apparatus”. He has been working in evolving reconstructions of children’s skeletons for surgical treatment with original techniques in children’s bone tumours since the beginning of his career. He has written 108 articles cited by PubMed and has presented scientific reports at 48 international congresses.

Maurilio Marcacci

Maurilio Marcacci is Full Professor and Director of the Center for the Functional Biological Reconstruction of the Knee at Milan’s Humanitas Hospital – IRCCS. He has written over 400 Italian and international publications. His area of research is sport traumatology using innovative surgical techniques for quick functional recovery, regenerative medicine with innovative techniques for cartilage and meniscal bone reconstruction with the aim of biological joint reconstruction, use of biological drugs as growth factors and multipotent cells, biomechanical study of the lower limbs based on new prosthetic models and corrections of congenital and acquired deformities.

Paolo Marchetti

Paolo Marchetti is oncology professor at Rome’s La Sapienza University, director of its specialist programme and scientific director on the second level Immunology M.Sc. He is Medica B oncology director at Policlinico Umberto I in Rome and the oncology department of Ospedale Sant’Andrea in Rome.
His areas of specialisation revolve around curing patients suffering from cancers of the breast and lungs, gynaecological tumours, melanomas and all solid tumours. He is an expert in chemo-prevention in breast cancer. Professor Marchetti also invented the electrical Dolometer, a device capable of measuring pain, and Lesar, an electronic tool for the assessment and recording of oncology patient life quality. In this context he co-ordinates a research group which has published various articles and produced clinical guidelines on the treatment of symptoms in the simultaneous cures framework. He has published over 100 scientific articles in sector journals. He has spoken at and chaired a great many Italian and international conferences and is founder and president of the Fondazione di Medicine Personalizzata as well as member of various national and international associations dealing with tumours such as AIOM, ESMO and ASCO.

Gianvito Martino

Born in Bergamo in 1962, Gianvito Martino graduated in Medicine and Surgery from University of Pavia in 1987, where he specialised in Neurology in 1991. From 1990 to 1992 he did research work abroad at the Neurology Department of Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute and at the same department of the Chicago University. Since 2016 he has been Scientific Director of Istituto Scientifico San Raffaele in Milan. Already Honorary Professor at Queen Mary University in London, he is Full Professor of Applied Biology at the University Vita-Salute of Milan. He is Former President of the International Society of Neuroimmunology and founder and science co-ordinator at the Global Schools of Neuroimmunology. An expert popular science speaker, he is one of the founders and exponents of the BergamoScienza Science Festival and author of various books including Identità e mutamento. La biologia in bilico (2010), winner of Cecina’s Fermi Prize in 2011 for popular science, Il cervello gioca in difesa. Storie di cellule che pensano (2013), first Associazione Italiana del Libro prize winner in the Popular Science books category, In crisi d’identità. Contro natura o contro la natura? (2014), and his latest book Usare il cervello. Ciò che la scienza può insegnare alla politica’(2018).

Giuseppe Martorana

Full Professor at the University of Bologna since 1994 and Director of its Urology Clinic until 31st October 2016. He has been member of the Scientific Committee of the European Urology Society, director of Centro Interdipartimentale per la Tutela della Salute Sessuale, national reference person for the Urology Specialisation Schools, member of the Commissione Oncologica Regionale, President of the Società Italiana di Urologia Oncologica, President of SAMUR (Studi Avanzati Malattie Urologiche), President of the Collegio Professori Ordinari di Urologia, President of the Società Italiana Urologia (SIU). He is promoter of avant-garde technology in urology (laparoscopy and robotics surgery) and of the Prostate Cancer Unit at the Policlinico S.Orsola-Malpighi of Bologna, and Director of the University’s MSC in Urology Surgical Robotics.

Marcello Massimini

Since completing his thesis in Medicine, Marcello Massimini has focused on studying the relationship between brain and consciousness and is currently Professor of Physiology at the University of Milan. His work has contributed to understand the mechanisms of loss and recovery of consciousness during sleep, anaesthesia and coma. Currently, his work aims to bring theoretical neuroscience closer to the patient, develop new measures that can detect consciousness in patients with severe brain injury with great sensitivity and guide their recovery. At the same time, he studies the philosophical and ethical implications of the neuroscience of consciousness, topics which he is constantly disseminating through books, public seminars and documentaries.

Diego Mazzatenta

Diego Mazzatenta is Associate Professor at the University of Bologna and Director of the Specialisation School in Neurology at the same University. First level Medical Director at the Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche in Bologna (IRCCS), he is responsible for the “pituitary surgery and endoscopic surgery at the base of the skull” programme.

Antonio Mazzotti

Antonio Mazzotti graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Bologna and specialised in Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli. He has presented over 90 abstracts to congresses and authored over 80 scientific publications. Advisor to Società Italiana della Caviglia e del Piede, he is a member of scientific societies including the Società Italiana Ortopedia e Traumatologia and the European Foot and Ankle Society. He is engaged in clinical and research work as a research grant holder at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, directed by Professor Faldini, on themes relating to base sciences and the treatment of congenital and acquired skeletal muscle system pathologies.

Elena Meli

A biologist with a doctorate in pharmacology, after working as a researcher for years at Florence University in the stroke treatment field, Elena Meli moved into journalism. She works with Corriere della Sera Salute, Io Donna, Sette, Focus and Focus Extra and has published a number of books including La dieta anti-diabete (Giunti Demetra 2017), Le malattie infiammatorie croniche intestinali: un colloquio fra i pazienti e i loro medici (Associazione AMICI, 2010), Edema e trombosi venosa nei voli di lunga durata (Minerva Medica, 2001). She has won many popular science journalism prizes and taught journalism at the universities of Milan, Naples, Siena and Roma 3.

Lorenzo Menicanti

Born in Ivrea in 1950, Lorenzo Menicanti graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the Cattolica University of Rome. After specialising in Urology, Paediatric Surgery and Heart Surgery he worked as a heart surgeon at Bergamo and Vicenza hospitals. He continued and completed his training at the universities of Marseilles and Nice and in London at the Harley Street Clinic. He also completed his training at Houston’s Texas Medical Center and at the University of California in San Francisco. Since 1990 he has been Head of the Cardiology Division at Policlinico San Donato where, since 2015, he is Director of the Heart Surgery area and scientific director of IRCCS. He has performed over 16.000 surgeries since 1989. He has written over 170 peer reviewed articles for international specialist journals. He has been President of Società Italiana di Cardiochirurgia.

Antonio Messina

Antonio Messina is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Merck Serono S.p.A. Hired in April 1999 as Director of its neurological line, in 2003 he was appointed first Greek Country Manager and then General Manager of Greece and Italy. Before starting his experience in Merck, Messina held various positions in Bayer and Rhone Poulenc Rorer. In the latter company he was first oncology product manager for the UK and, later, marketing manager of the same line for the Italian structure. Since 2014 he has been a member of the Farmindustria Presidential Board and, since 2017, Vice president of Farmindustria. Messina graduated in biology from La Sapienza University in Rome and completed his training with an MBA Strategic Executive Program at Babson College in Boston, a finance for executive course at INSEAD in Milan and Biopharma Breakthrough 2008 at London Business School. In 2016, the University of Bari awarded him an honorary degree in chemistry and pharmaceutical technology.

Michele Mirabella

Michele Mirabella was born in Bitonto but has also lived elsewhere. Above all elsewhere. He has studied for many years, since birth and likes to remember. At the age of four he learnt to read, at the age of five to write. At a study level all the rest is less important and would not, in any case, be of any interest to anyone. He has never taken part in sport except fencing: foil. This has been of more benefit to him in conversation than in tournaments. He is a performer: director, writer, screen writer, actor and presenter. Bravo. That’s how he has earned his living. He’s not a dancer. He can sing but will never be a singer. And certainly not in a choir. He does not generally feel at home in choirs. He prefers listening to them. He adores melodrama. He has written books and teaches at university because he is convinced that it is only by teaching that we continue to study. He writes in newspapers. He likes good Italian food. Wine, in moderation, is a friend of his and he frequents intelligent people immoderately. He includes his too beloved daughters amongst these. He loves travelling. Comfortably if possible. (But everything conspires to make his life hard).

Fabiana Morroni

Fabiana Morroni is Established Researcher at the Pharmacy and Bio-Technologies Department of the University of Bologna and teaches Toxicology at various pharmacy courses. She studied for her PhD at the University of Bologna in pharmacology and toxicology and acted as Visiting Researcher for a year at University of California Irvine Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. Her main area of scientific interest is studying neurodegeneration and neuroprotection via the use of synthesis substances and polyfunctional compounds of vegetable origin.

Paolo Giovanni Morselli

Paolo Morselli is Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at the University of Bologna and Medical Director of the Policlinico Sant’Orsola-Malpighi Plastic Surgery Unit. He has attended and taken part in activities at 27 of the most prestigious overseas universities. He has organised 35 scientific events and founded and acted as president of Interethnos Interplast Italy, ONLUS voluntary association in reconstructional plastic surgery which he has taken to hospitals in developing countries visited during humanitarian missions where he has performed over 5000 reconstructional plastic surgery operations. This work has cured serious malformations, burns and skin cancers. His research work has included 302 publications in Italian and international journals, including 4 monographs and 5 book chapters written as sole author.

Luigi Naldini

Luigi Naldini graduated in medicine in Turin, completed a research doctorate and spent several years in the US including at San Diego’s Salk Institute, where he began his pioneering work on developing HIV genetic vectors. Since 2008 he has been director of SR-Tiget which has become an international benchmark for the development and clinical application of gene therapy and gene editing. He has been president of the Società Europea di Terapia Genica e Cellulare (ESGCT) and won an Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy and ESGCT and a great many prizes such as Jimenez Diaz, Beutler from the American Society of Hematology and Jeantet-Collen for translational medicine.

Stefano Nardini

Stefano Nardini directed the Pneumology operational unit at ULSS 7-Veneto until May 2018. He also held posts at International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco and the European Respiratory Society. At the latter he also chaired the working group Tobacco, Smoking Control and Health Education and edited the monograph Smoking Cessation. In Italy he also worked at respiratory medicine societies and was president of Società Italiana di Pneumologia 2016-2018. Until the 2017-8 academic year he was also adjunct professor at Verona University’s Department of Corporate Economics. He is Deputy Editor of Multidisciplinary Respiratory Medicine.

Emanuele Neri

Professor Emanuele Neri teaches Radiology at the Department of Translational Research of the University of Pisa, and is Director of the Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Pisana’s Radiodiagnostica Universitaria 3. He directs the eHealth and Informatics Subcommittee of the European Society of Radiology, is a member of the Radiology Informatics Committee of the Radiological Society of North America, past President of the European Society of Medical imaging Informatics and Chair of the European Society of Oncologic Imaging’s Research Committee. His base and clinical research is into artificial intelligence applications, radiomics, image biobanks and integration with omics disciplines.

Graziamaria Nuzzaco

Graziamaria Nuzzacco is the Neurological Medical Director in the Neurology and Stroke Unit wards at the hospital ASST Ovest Milanese in Legnano (MI). Her work consists in managing patients in acute and subacute care in these wards, caring particularly for acute patients in the Stroke Unit, and also provides outpatient care in day clinics for cerebrovascular diseases and cluster headaches/migraines. Her main expertise is in vascular ultrasound diagnostics (supra-aortic trunk echo-doppler with colour flow, transcranial doppler ultrasonography and transcranial doppler bubble ultrasonography). Graziamaria Nuzzacco graduated in 2008, specialising in Neurology at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele.

Luciano Onder

Luciano Onder graduated in modern history in 1965 with Professor Renzo De Felice and taught at Rome’s La Sapienza University. He began working for RAI in 1966 on the series of programmes entitled Birth of a Dictatorship with Sergio Zavoli. Other famous and highly successful programmes of historical reconstruction produced by him include: Gli anni del consenso in Italia: 1936-39 and Svastica. The origins of Nazism. Since 1966 he has been involved in scientific divulgation work at RAI where he designed and conducted Medicina 33 for 35 years, a historical and more long-standing medical-scientific column of with Sergio Zavoli than TG2. In 2002 he was also deputy director of Tg2. In 2014, the University of Parma awarded him an honorary degree in medicine and surgery. In September 2014 he joined the TG5 and TGcom24 team for which he works on the TG5 Health and Health first of all columns, within the Mattino Cinque programme. Since 2013 he has also been running the medical programme La casa della salute on San Marino RTV.

Pierfrancesco Pacoda

Music critic and essayist, he works with lifestyles and especially music as a language of social transformation. He is from Salento but lives and works in Bologna. He was one of the exponents of the ‘rebirth’ of his land with his work together with the first 1990s groups which chose the Salento dialect to speak to a young audience as Sud Sound System. He witnessed the birth of Notte della Taranta, for whom he acted as communications manager for three years. He has dedicated two of the books of his large total to his homeland, Salento amore mio (Kowalski, Feltrinelli, 2011) and Tarantapatia (Kurumuny, 2012). He has also written about new music and Salento in his book Sulle rotte del rave (Feltrinelli, 2002) and La rivolta dello stile (Alet, 2009) written together with anthropologist Ted Polhemus. He writes for Il Resto del Carlino and is Artistic Director for the ArtRockMuseum journal set up by Genus Bononiae in Museo della Storia di Bologna at Palazzo Pepoli.

Fabio Pammolli

Fabio Pammolli is Professor of Business and Management at the Politecnico of Milan and is a member of the Comitato per gli Investimenti del Fondo Europeo per gli Investimenti Strategici at the Banca Europea per gli Investimenti. Since December 2018 he has been co-director of CADS and scientific co-ordinator of the project structure at Human Technopole. From 2005 to 2012 he was director of the Scuola IMT Alti Studi in Lucca. His research relates to the analysis of industrial dynamics and company growth, research, welfare and health systems.

Rossella Panarese

Rossella Panarese works at Radio 3 where she is responsible for a part of its network broadcasting. She writes and presents Radio 3Scienza, a daily programme. She works on the M.Sc in science communication at Trieste’s Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) and on the M.Sc (life sciences in journalism and institutional-political relations) at Rome La Sapienza University.

Paolo Pandolfi

After graduating in Medicine and Surgery as a specialist in Hygiene, Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine, since 2004 Paolo Pandolfi has been Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Bologna. He directs the Public Health Department and the UOC Epidemiology, Health Promotion and Risk Communication of the Azienda USL of Bologna. He has written over 100 documents including monographs, communications and scientific articles. He is a member of SISTI (Studio Italiano Suscettibilità Temperatura ed Inquinamento) and the Health Ministry group working on prevention in the field of the effects of extreme climatic events on people’s health.

Luca Pani

Luca Pani is Full Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and at the Clinical Psychiatry at Miami University (USA). Over recent years he has covered important Italian and international roles as regulator and negotiator for new medicines including the first global gene therapies. He has acted as General Director of the Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco (AIFA) from 2011 to 2016 and is a member of the scientific committees of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in London from 2010 to 2017 and currently of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington DC. His recent work on the subject includes: Prescrivere Valore (with G. Corbellini, EDRA-LSWR, Milan 2017); Lo strano caso Avastin-Lucentis (EDRA, Milan 2017) and Resilienza Farmaceutica. Come Governare l’evoluzione delle terapie (EDRA, Milan 2018).

Omar Pappalardo

Pappalardo is a Post-Doctoral researcher and obtained his PhD in Cardiovascular Science at Cardio Thoracic Surgery at University of Verona. During his PhD he developed computational tools to aid the clinician in the morphological and functional analysis of the anatomical structures. In specific, he is focused on the biomechanical models and on the imaging analysis of echocardiographic and computed tomography data.

Antonio Pelliccia

Antonio Pelliccia specialises in cardiovascular disease and sport medicine. He heads the cardiology department of the Italian Olympic Committee’s Institute of Medicine and Sport. He is adjunct professor in sport cardiology at Aquila and La Sapienza universities’ specialisation schools in cardiovascular disease and sport medicine. He was the Italian delegation’s health director at the following winter Olympic Games: Salt Lake City 2002, Turin 2006, Vancouver 2010 and the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 summer Olympics. He is associate professor in medicine at TUFTS University, Boston. He has written a great deal of work for international scientific journals (New Engl J Med, Circulation, JACC, Eur Hart J) on the cardiovascular physiopathology of exercise and sport. He is past president of the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation and the European Society of Cardiology.

Susi Pelotti

Susi Pelotti teaches Forensic Medicine at the School of Medicine and Surgery and at the School of Law of the University of Bologna. She works as technical consultant and expert in judicial authority and is a member of the Management Board of the Società Italiana di Medicina Legale.

Giuseppe Petralia

Giuseppe Petralia has been a doctor since 2001. He specialised in radiodiagnostics with a thesis on angiogenesis imaging in tumours after a period of research at Massachusetts General Hopsital in Boston (USA). Since 2005 he has worked at Istituto Europeo di Oncologia (IEO) in Milan where he introduced Diffusion Whole Body in 2009. He is now a researcher at Milan University and head of the IEO’s magnetic resonance. He is fellow of the International Cancer Imaging Society (ICIS) and advisor to the MR section of the Società Italiana di Radiologia Medica (SIRM). He has written around 60 articles in scientific journals and spoken at a great many international conferences in many of which he has carried out training courses in the most innovative MR applications for oncology patients.

Lorenzo Piemonti

Lorenzo Piemonti teaches Endocrinology at the Università Vita e Salute San Raffaele in Milano and is Director of the Diabetes Research Institute at IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele in Milan. Professor Piemonti has co-authored over 200 original scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals reviewed on PubMed and has an h-index (December2018) of 43 Web of Science, 47 Scopus and 53 Google Scholar. He is currently on the publishing committee of the Cell Transplantation-the Regenerative Medicine Journal, Current Diabetes Reports and Acta Diabetologia. He is also Elected Councillor at the International Pancreas and Islet Transplantation Association (IPITA), The Transplantation Society section, and appointed member of the Comitato Nazionale per la Sicurezza Alimentare.

Pietro Pietrini

Pietro Pietrini, Neuroscientist and Psychiatrist, is Full Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology and, since November 2015, Head of the Scuola IMT Alti Studi of Lucca. He graduated in Medicine and Surgery and specialized in Neurosciences from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa. For almost thirty years, he has been studying the brain basis of mental functions and normal and pathologic human behaviour, as well as the implications of neuroscientific knowledge on issues such as chargeability and free will. He is authors of several scientific publications and collaborates with the Sunday supplement of Il Sole 24 Ore on psychiatry topics.

Carmine Pinto

Carmine Pinto is Director of the Medical Oncology Operative Unit of the Clinical Cancer Centre, AUSL-IRCCS in Reggio Emilia. The main themes of his study are research and therapy in biomolecular and translational medical treatment in solid tumours.

Loris Pironi

Loris Pironi is Full Professor and he directs the School of Specialization in Food Science and degree course in Dietics at the University of Bologna. Specialist in gastroenterology, food science and internal medicine, he directs the Regional Reference Centre for Benign Chronic Intestinal Insufficiency at the Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi of Bologna. He leads the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism’s Intestinal Insufficiency research group, a scientific society with more than 50 country members and for which he coordinated the drafting of Linee Guida per l’insufficienza Intestinale Cronica. He is a member of the patients with intestinal insufficiency parents’ association scientific committee, Un Filo Per la Vita.

Sergio Pistoi

Sergio Pistoi is a scientific journalist and consultant with a PhD in Molecular Biology. He contributes to Italian and international newspapers (Scientific America, The News Scientist, Reuters, Nature) mainly in relation to genetics, stamina and medicine. He curated Telethon’s scientific communication and works as a consultant to international companies and research projects. He teaches scientists how to communicate with the public and use the media. He has written Il DNA incontra Facebook and won the 2013 Premio Galileo and the YouTube channel RockScience awards. He travels around Italy with the conference-tour Geni a Bordo.

Giuseppe Plazzi

Giuseppe Plazzi is Associate Professor in Neurology at the University of Bologna, and manages the university’s Centre for the Study and Cure of Sleep Disorders at Bologna’s Neurological Sciences RCCS. His area of greatest research and clinical interest is hypersomnia and narcolepsia in particular. He has authored and co-authored more than 300 scientific articles published in international journals. He works in popular dissemination of subjects relating to sleep medicine and is President of the Associazione Italiana di Medicina del Sonno (AIMS).

Venerino Poletti

Venerino Poletti is Director of the Romagna Regional Health Unit’s Department of Thoracic Medicine, laerestolsprofessor (Full Professor) of Pulmonary Medicine at Aarhus University in Denmark and President of the Associazione Italiana degli Pneumologi Ospedalieri (AIPO). He graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Bologna and then specialised in respiratory apparatus and phthisiology diseases and in pathological anatomy at the same University. He has written more than 400 scientific publications (270 in PubMed) and a number of English language books in pneumology. His research interests are widespread pulmonary illnesses, interventional pulmonology, pathological anatomy of widespread pulmonary diseases and, recently, respiratory sleep conditions.

Livio Presutti

Livio Presutti is Full Professor of Otorhinolaryngology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and Director of the Clinic of Otorhinolaryngology of the Policlinico of Modena and Director of the School of Specialization of Otorhinolaryngology of the University of Modena. He is author of 160 articles published on international scientific journals and numerous books in English, i.e. Endoscopic Ear Surgery – Principles, Indications, and Techniques (ed. Thieme), Atlas of Airway Surgery: A Step-by-Step Guide Using an Animal Model (ed. Springer), Atlas of Craniocervical Junction and Cervical Spine Surgery (ed. Springer), Endoscopic Surgery of the Lacrimal Drainage System (ed. Springer), Injection laryngoplasty (ed. Springer), Endoscopic Ear Surgery, an Issue of Otolaryngologic Clinics (ed. Elsevier). He is expert in surgery of the head-neck district with particular reference to endoscopic and minimally invasive surgery.

Claudio Rapezzi

Professor Claudio Rapezzi is Director of the Cardiology Unit at the Policlinico S.Orsola-Malpighi in Bologna. His principal scientific interests relate to clinical cardiology, cardiovascular physiopathology, the diagnosis process, electrocardiology, ecocardiology, heart failure and myocardial illnesses, especially cardiac amyloidosis. He has published more than 500 articles in Italian and international journals, books and conference papers.

Rino Rappuoli

Rino Rappuoli is Chief Scientist and head of External R&D at GSK Vaccines in Siena. He has also been in charge of R&D at Sclavo, head of vaccine research and Chief Scientific Officer at Chiron Corporation as well as having been in charge of vaccine R&D at Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics. Always involved in the development of vaccines against serious illnesses of viral and bacterial origin, Rino Rappuoli is one of the founders of cellular microbiology and one of the pioneers of so-called reverse vaccinology, an innovative technique that allows vaccines to be produced starting from the genome, a technique which could not be achieved using traditional methods. His numerous successes include the development of CRM 197, a molecule that forms part of the Haemophilus influenza, pneumococcus and meningococcus vaccines and is used to vaccinate the majority of children around the world, following the recombinant vaccine against pertussis, which was the first product in the world to be developed according to the criteria of precision medicine. He developed the first adjuvated influenza vaccine, a conjugate vaccine against type C meningitis, and lately, the first wide coverage vaccine against meningococcus B. Rappuoli is one of the scientists seeking to foster globally sustainable health.

Gloria Ravegnini

Gloria Ravegnini, graduate in Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies, has a research doctorate in Pharmacological and Toxicological Science of Human Movement and Development and in Oncology, Haematology and Pathology, is a research grant holder at the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology of the University of Bologna and winner of the 2018 L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women and Science prize. Most of her work relates to studying how DNA and RNA alterations are involved in individual predisposition and clinical response to tumours.

Daniele Regge

Daniele Regge is Associate Professor at the University of Turin and Director of Fondazione del Piemonte per l’Oncologia’s radiodiagnostics unit, IRCCS. Over the last 15 years his research has focused on developing artificial intelligence software and computer assisted diagnostics in particular for the purposes of increasing the precision of medical images in the diagnosis of tumours. Regge has worked in finalising radiological enquiries for the early diagnosis of the four big oncology killers and the development of radiomics capable of forecasting response to oncology cures. Professor Regge has written 191 indexed publications and taken part by invitation in more than 300 conferences all around the world and is Past President of the Società Europea di Imaging Oncologico (ESOI).

Gian Guido Riva

Gian Guido Riva has taken on various challenges including founding firms which has given him an insight into the pros and cons of these firms. He has successfully developed concepts and products from conception to sale on the strength of his vision and ability to listen to clients. He is currently developing a new firm dealing with medical technology to which he is applying the watershed concept of Industry 4.0 to the Progetto REJOINT. He is greatly involved in Confindustria in which he has been: youth president in Bologna, member of the national board of youth presidents in the Research and Technology Presidency Committee, member of the senior presidential board in Bologna and member of the national senior board, member of the senior research and technology committee.

Fabio Roversi-Monaco

Fabio Roversi-Monaco was Magnifico Rettore of the University of Bologna from 1985 to 2000 and currently is Professor Emeritus of Administrative Law at the same University. During his time as Magnifico Rettore, he conceived and drawn up the Magna Charta Universitatum, which was signed by over 400 Chancellors from all over the world on 18 September 1988 and, later, by 500 Chancellors more, and is the Founder and Honorary President of the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory. Professor Roversi-Monaco promoted the “Bologna Process”, which found fulfilment with the meeting of twenty-nine European Ministers for Education in Bologna in 1999, aimed at launching new university courses and ensuring the quality comparability of education qualifications of the Countries involved and free circulation of European students and graduates. The meetings led to the drawing up of the “Bologna Declaration”, which was signed by 29 European Countries on 19 June 1999. He is member of the scientific committees of several scientific journals and founder and editor of the journal “Sanità Pubblica e Privata”. He held the office of President of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio of Bologna. He was also President of Banca IMI and currently hold the office of Vice-president. He is also Chairman of the Società Museo della Città di Bologna S.r.l. He has been awarded an honorary degree from Dickinson College in Carlyle, Brown University in Providence, the Complutense University in Madrid, Panthèon 1 University – Sorbonne in Paris 1, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Soka University in Tokyo, Universidad Externado de Colombia, the University of St Petersburg, the University of Barcelona, the University of Cordoba, Pontificia Universidad Cattolica di Belo Horizonte, Salta University, University of Montréal, University of Denver, Victoria University of Melbourne, Uruguay Catholic University, University of La Plata, University of Trieste, University of Maribor, the State University of Samarkand, Università G.D’Annunzio in Chieti and Pescara, University Palacky in Olomouc in the Czech Republic. He has been awarded the following titles: Cavaliere di Gran Croce della Repubblica Italiana, Knight of the Lègion d’Honneur from the French President, Cavaliere dell’Ordine Civile di Savoia, the Portuguese republic’s Ordem de Sant’Iago de Espada, Croce di Grand’Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito di Malta, the Order of the Grand Cross of Alphonso X the Wise, King of Spain, Commander of the Order of St Louis, Polish Republic, Knight of the Order of Merit King Abdulaziz Class Two, Saudi Arabia. He is a Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow.

Maria Giulia Roversi-Monaco

Maria Giulia Roversi-Monaco is Professor of Administrative Law at the Degree Course of Law (University of Bologna) and Professor of Principles of Law at the Degree Course of Business and Economics (Clabe) of the same University. She is a Supreme Court attorney.

Elisa Rozzi

Elisa Rozzi co-ordinates the activities of the network for rare diseases and the Sistema Informativo Regionale Malattie Rare and the Hub & Spoke networks relating to haemophilia and congenital bleeding disorders, thalassemia and hereditary hemolytic anemia, glycogenosis, cystic fibrosis, Marfan syndrome, rare skeleton diseases, rare paediatric diseases, hereditary metabolic diseases, neurofibromatosis and movement disturbances. She represents the Emilia-Romagna region and the inter-regional panel on rare diseases. She maintains the regional genetics monitoring network and co-ordinates the rare tumours working group and the regional panel for neonatal screening in endocrine and metabolic diseases.

Alberto Ruffilli

Alberto Ruffilli is Medical Director Specialist in Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute in Bologna. In 2018 he obtained national scientific qualification in the second category (Associate Professor SC 06/F4, SSD MED/33). In 2016 he obtained a PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Bologna. With an observership in Sports Medicine at the TAOS Orthopaedic Institute (Taos, NM, USA), he has written more than 40 indexed and high impact publications for the principal and most prestigious international journals. Author of numerous publications in non-indexed journals and co-author of numerous monographs and book chapters, his clinical interests include spine, knee and ankle surgery.

Paolo Maria Russo

aolo Maria Russo is Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Bologna’s Med School. His research, documented in numerous national and international publications, is mainly about the role of the differences of inter-individual and personality traits on the mechanisms at the base of interpersonal perception and the emotional, decision making and relationship processes. Since 2016 he has coordinated the research of the Psychological Sciences and Medicine Lab of the Departments of Specialist, Diagnostic and Experimental Medicine (DIMES). Its principal research topics focus on analysing “decision making” in the clinical area, identifying the individual and organizational factors which forecast compliance, therapeutic adherence and enable the effectiveness of the various communicative styles to take place. The type of communication chosen characterizes the relationship between the patient and the healthcare professional, in terms of satisfaction with the care provided and quality of life after treatment.

Vincenzo Santoro

Vincenzo Santoro has been working for many years in reflecting on and organising initiatives and events on southern Italian popular music and culture, themes which he has studied and published in a range of books including: Il ritmo meridiano. La pizzica e le identità danzanti del Salento (Edizioni Aramirè 2002), Il Salento levantino. Memoria e racconto del tabacco a Tricase e in Terra d’Otranto, (Edizioni Aramirè, 2005) (both together with Sergio Torsello), and, for Roman publishing house Squilibri, Il ritorno della taranta. Storia della rinascita della musica popolare salentina (2009), Memorie della terra. Racconti e canti di lavoro e di lotta del Salento (2010) and Odino nelle terre del rimorso. Eugenio Barba e l’Odin Teatret in Salento e Sardegna (1973-1975) (2018). A new book by him, entitled Rito e passione, will come out in spring. Conversazioni sulla musica popolare salentina. He also writes a lively blog on these themes: www.vincenzosantoro.it. He works at the Associazione Nazionale dei Comuni Italiani, where he manages its culture and tourism department.

Massimo Scaccabarozzi

Massimo Scaccabarozzi has been Chairman of Farmindustria since June 2011. Before, he held the office of Vice-chairman of Farmindustria and Chairman of the IAPG Group (Farmindustria member of American Companies in Italy) for 5 years. Since June 2011, he is member of the Board and is permanently invited to the meetings of the Confindustria Board of Governors. Since May 2015, he is member of the Confindustria General Council. Chairman of the Johnson & Johnson Foundation from 2001 to 2011, he was re-elected to the chair in 2013 and reconfirmed in 2017. In 2001, he joined Janssen Italia, where he held the office of General Manager at first and Managing Director later. In June 2017, Janssen Italia was awarded the “Le Fonti” award for the second year in a row as Excellence of the Year for innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. In June 2016, he won the CEO award of the Year 2015 for pharmaceutical innovation. On 25 March 2018, he was appointed as Collegiale Honoris Causa of the Nobile Collegio Chimico Farmacutico – Universitas Aromatariorum Urbis for his professional and social merits and became member of the Nobile Collegio Romano de’ Speziali. He is the frontman of “JC Band”, a rock band composed of Janssen Italia employees that has been performing at charity concerts for ten years.

Andrea Segrè

Andrea Segrè is Full Professor in International and Comparative Agricultural Policy at the University of Bologna. He is founder and President of Last Minute Market, University of Bologna accredited spin-off company and president of Bologna’s Centro Agroalimentare. He is also President of Fondazione FICO for food education and sustainability in Bologna and of Fondazione Edmund Mach-Istituto Agrario in San Michele all’Adige (TN).

Renato Seracchioli

Director of the gynaecology and pathophysiology of reproduction operating unit at Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi of Bologna. Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Bologna. He works in the fields of gynaecological endoscopic surgery, endometriosis, uterus pathology and sterility.
He is author of over 230 publications in the major scientific journals and several books.

Aya Soffer

Dr. Aya Soffer is Vice President of AI Tech for the IBM Research AI organization. In her role, Dr. Soffer sets the strategy, works with IBM scientists around the world to help shape their ideas into new AI technology, and with IBM’s product groups and customers to drive Research innovation into the market. In her 20 years at IBM, Dr. Soffer has led several strategic initiatives that grew into successful IBM products and solutions. Her team worked on the original Watson system, and more recently on the Project Debater. She has authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers and served as an invited speaker in numerous conferences.

Gennaro Sosto

Gennaro Sosto qualified as an engineer and is the Director General of the regional health authority of Molise. He is member of several Italian national bodies concerned with public health management. He has spoken at various conventions, and has taught Master and graduate courses, mainly on risk management in healthcare.
He has written a number of articles published nationally and internationally.

Piergiorgio Strata

Emeritus Professor of Neurophysiology at the University of Turin. He is a member of international Societies and Academies, like the Academia Europaea and Premio Feltrinelli (2004) at the Accademia dei Lincei. He was a researcher in Canberra and Chicago with the Nobel Prize John Eccles. He is Honorary Professor of Neurology at the Northwestern University of Chicago.

Ken Swain

Ken is a keen innovator within the digital creative sector, pioneering design and technology across a diverse industry base. His commercial success in establishing and growing businesses is reflective of his experience in the sector and passion for blending the creative with the strategic. Ken has worked in the 3D environment for over 40 years, starting his career in Manchester before moving to Australia where he was a freelance 3D designer. He introduced 3D CAD-CAM digital facilities that led to many innovative 3D design solutions – including an Australian Design Award and a Japanese G-Mark Design Award. In 1990 Ken set up his own 3D CGI Design practice, qualified as a professional instructor for Alias|Wavefront and was invited to be a Visiting Lecturer at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He became a full Member of the Design Institute of Australia and an advisor to West Australian Government for Design and Technology curriculum. Ken joined Alias|Wavefront, Europe in 1995 as EMEA Technical Services Manager. In 2002. he started his own company, Design Academy Ltd., and worked with interactive 3D design, real-time 3D simulation-based learning, development, and communication. Ken joined EON Reality in 2011 as a Business Development Director and in 2012 became the Managing Director for EON Reality’s European HQ Hub in Manchester. In March 2016 he became EON Reality Ltd.’s Chairman having moved to a more strategic global role within the EON Reality group.

Liuwe Tamminga

Liuwe Tamminga is considered one of the greatest experts in the 16th and 17th century Italian organ music repertoire. He is organist at Basilica di S. Petronio in Bologna where he plays the magnificent Lorenzo da Prato (1471-75) and Baldassarre Malamini (1596) historic organs. He has recorded many CDs of the work of Marc’Antonio Cavazzoni, Frescobaldi, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, Fiorenzo Maschera, Giacomo Puccini and Giuseppe Verdi. He has edited certain music editions. Since 2010 he has been curator of the musical instruments in the San Colombano-Collezione Tagliavini in Bologna. His frequent concert work has taken him all over Europe and to the United States, Latin America, Israel and Japan.

Gaetano Thiene

Gaetano Thiene is Emeritus Professor, previously Full Professor, in Pathological Anatomy at Padua University. He has been Director of the Cardiovascular Pathology Complex Operative Unit at Padua’s Azienda Ospedaliera, Director of the Doctoral Research Programme in Specialist Medicine GB Morgagni. He was the Rector’s Delegate for Bressanone based activities and for the promotion of the historical tradition and the international image of the Padua medical school. Cardiologist and anatomical pathologist, he has always done correlative anatomical-clinical research in the cardiovascular field with clinical implications for base research. He has published over 1115 articles per extenso in indexed journals (Times cited: 69451; Hirch index 118) and has written 25 monographs. His research interests are congenital cardiopathy, cardiomyopathies and myocarditis, sudden death, coronary pathologies, arrhythmia pathologies and conduction tissues, heart tumours, artificial heart valves and heart transplant pathologies.

Umberto Tirelli

Umberto Tirelli graduated in Medicine and Surgery, with a subsequent specialization in Oncology, Haematology and Infectious Diseases. Professor, since 2017, of the MSc in Oxygen Ozone Therapy at the University of Pavia, he is one of Italy’s top scientists, having published more than 580 scientific publications in the main national and international journals, reviewed on PubMed. He is a member of the Technical Scientific Committee (CTS) of the Centro di Riferimento Oncologico of Aviano, the National Institute for Tumours and of the Italian Anti Smoke League’s scientific committee supporting electronic cigarettes. In the past, the Minister of Health nominated him part of the National Oncology Commission and the National AIDS Commission. He is also a member of numerous international and Italian scientific societies (Haematological Oncology, Cancer and Aging, Journal of Cancer Survivorship). He is a member of the editorial committee of the scientific journals Cancer Therapy, Chemotherapy Research and Practice, The Scientific World Journal and Ozone Therapy.

Giovanni Tredici

iovanni Tredici was formerly Professor of Neuroanatomy at University of Milano and Milano-Bicocca. He directed for many years the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical technologies, publishing around 200 neuroscience papers. From 1982 to today he has been race physician at Italy’s main cycling events (Giro d’Italia, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano-Sanremo, Giro di Lombardia etc.). He is currently Chief Medical Officer at the cycling events organised by RCS Sport. In this capacity he has contributed to organising and developing medical assistance structures at cycling races in general but above all in multi-stage races.

Fabio Tricomi

Catania-born enomusicologist and musician, Fabio Tricomi studies medieval music repertoires in both academic contexts and the folklore tradition. He currently plays as a soloist and in groups with various formations, in particular in technical-performance aspects relating to various Mediterranean and Middle Eastern musical instruments. He has recorded for RCA, Folkstudio, Ricordi, Quadrivium, Stradivarius, Edt, il Manifesto, Arts, Gymel, Fonè, Tactus, Bongiovanni, etc. and taken part in top level historic music events in Italy and overseas. He teaches ethnic and medieval music at the popular music school Ivan Illich in Bologna.

Giorgio Trizzino

Giorgio Trizzino is a specialist in hygiene and preventative medicine, thoracic medicine and general surgery. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 2018 in the Palermo-Libertà single member constituency with the supported of Movimento Cinque Stelle. He is a member of the 5th Commission (accounts, treasury and planning) and the 7th Commission (social affairs). He was vice-president of the special commission for the examination of government deeds from 12th April to 21st June 2018. He was first signatory of a draft law designed to introduce the obligation for companies owning pharmacies to guarantee the ownership of at least 51% of shares to registered pharmacists.

Piera Versura

Associate professor at Bologna University since 2018, Piera Versura carries out research in the field of physiopathology of ocular surface and neuro protection mechanisms. Her research interests are directed in particular at dry eye diseases and their various expressions in association with systemic diseases. Her work currently focuses on biomarkers which can lead to early diagnosis and act as therapeutic outcome indicators in ocular surface diseases and she also works in Italian and international research projects. Within the department she is reference person for research and co-ordinates the Research Quality Commission.

Claudio Vicini

Claudio Vicini is Associate Professor in Otorhinolaryngology at the Universities of Ferrara and Bologna and Director of the Romagna Regional Health unit’s Head-Neck Department. Specialist in ORL, audiology and neurology, he is also an expert in sleep medicine at Associazione Italiana di Medicina del Sonno (AIMS). He is currently President of Società Italiana di Otorinolaringoiatria e Chirurgia Cervico-Facciale for which he manages a course in Surgery for Respiratory Sleep Disorders, now on its tenth year. He has written more than one hundred scientific articles and monographs in the fields of surgery for snoring and apnea.

Andrea Vico

Andrea Vico has been a journalist since 1988 and for the last 25 years he has worked exclusively on scientific divulgation through the various edutainment strategies. He has written about environment, energy, frontiers of research, new technologies for everyday life and ICT for La Stampa, Tuttoscienze, Specchio, Il Sole 24 Ore, Le Scienze. For RAI he wrote RaiTre’s scientific programme Hit Science for children. In addition to his journalistic work, he has designed several scientific dissemination exhibitions, helping to introduce the best European science centers experience (“hands on” philosophy). He was also one of the authors of the interactive exhibition Experimenta in Turin, he collaborated with the Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali (Pole Position exhibition). Since 2003 he has participated in all editions of the Festival della Scienza in Genoa as author, designer and organizer. He was responsible for designing the Incredible Expo area “Incredibile Enel“, a project of scientific dissemination that passed through 22 cities September 2009 and August 2011 and with Patrizio Roversi, for example, the game conference La tombola dell’energia. He teaches science communication at the University of Turin (Degree Course in Mathematics) and is a Lecturer in scientific journalism at the University of Turin/Ordine dei Giornalisti MA. He has to his credit eight books, four of which are for children; Dal fuoco all’Elio, with Editoriale Scienza, and L’incredibile viaggio di una buccia di banana (ed. Giralangolo). He founded the cultural association ToScience, where he is the coordinator of the Science Camp and Turisti per scienza sectors.

Massimo Giorgio Visentin

Massimo Giorgio Visentin has been Pfizer Italy’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer since May 2012. In addition to this position, he is also responsible for Pfizer SRL Internal Medicine Business Unit which specializes in cardio-metabolic diseases. He joined Pfizer in 2003 as its business finance & planning Director, following the acquisition of Pharmacia and has held positions of increasing responsibility within Pfizer Italia. Prior to joining Pfizer, he held several roles of increasing financial responsibility in consumer companies such as Kraft Jacobs Suchard and Coty (Benckiser Group) in Italy, the Netherlands and France. He is currently Chairman of the Farmindustria Prevention Group, member of the Farmindustria Presidential Committee and member of MIHMEP Bocconi AB.

9 MAY 2019

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10 MAY 2019

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11 MAY 2019

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12 MAY 2019

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14 June 2019

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18 June 2019

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PALAZZO PEPOLI. MUSEO DELLA STORIA DI BOLOGNA

via Castiglione, 8

Palazzo Pepoli Vecchio, antique home of one of the most important medieval families of Bologna, is the result of numerous architectural additions and interventions. Its story began in 1276, when Romeo Pepoli bought the first constructions and continued in 1344, when his son Taddeo Pepoli built the first nucleus of the Palace. The Pepoli family, the first to become Lords of Bologna, remained owners of the building until 1910.

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BIBLIOTECA D’ARTE E DI STORIA SAN GIORGIO IN POGGIALE

Via Nazario Sauro 20/2

Realized inside a 16th century church, the Art and History Library of San Giorgio in Poggiale has since 2009 housed the rich book patrimony of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio as well as important contemporary artworks: Campo dei Fiori and the monumental Delocazione by Claudio Parmiggiani, and the cycle Cattedrale by Piero Pizzi Cannella. The Library, whose lay-out was curated by the architect Michele de Lucchi, is also used as a venue for cultural events and exhibitions.

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SAN COLOMBANO. COLLEZIONE TAGLIAVINI

Via Parigi, 5

Acquired by Fondazione Carisbo in 2005, this is a religious building complex made up of a series of adjoining buildings joined together over the centuries. The oldest part is the church itself which is popularly believed to have been built at the behest of the Bishop of Bologna, Peter I, in around 610.

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AULA MAGNA SANTA LUCIA

via Castiglione, 36

The Aula Magna di Santa Lucia was inaugurated on 5 May 1988 with the conferring of an honorary degree on His Majesty, King of Spain Juan Carlos I.

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AULA ABSIDALE DI SANTA LUCIA

Via de’ Chiari, 25

The former church of Santa Lucia, whose charmingly unfinished front stands halfway down Via Castiglione, was solemnly inaugurated in May 1988 on the occasion of the celebrations organized by former Rector Fabio Roversi-Monaco for the Ninth Centenary of the University of Bologna, who purchased and restored it for the University.

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PALAZZO DELL’ARCHIGINNASIO

Piazza Galvani, 1

The monumental 16th century building of Archiginnasio is one of the most meaningful palaces of Bologna. It was built in only one year and half between 1562 and 1563, and in the pope’s intentions the “new schools’ building” or Archiginnasio had to join and dignify the several University schools of the city, to give importance to the Bolognese studies in the face of the competition with the new European University centres.

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PALAZZO RE ENZO

Piazza del Nettuno, 1

Palazzo Re Enzo was built in the 14th century immediately after the Palazzo del Podestà, and it was called originally New Palace to distinguish it from the latter; its function was new indeed, since it had to include the widespread representatives of the people.

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PALAZZO POGGI

via Zamboni, 33

The current structure of Palazzo Poggi building dates back to remodeling and expansion work done in the 16th century on a home purchased by the Poggi family at the end of the 15th century.

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CASA SARACENI

via Farini, 15

Considered one of the most interesting buildings of the “Bolognese” Renaissance between the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, with its façade Casa Saraceni is an example of the encounter between the Bolognese tradition and the architectural novelties from Florence. Its rich terracotta decoration stands out alternating with the sandstone of the portico capitals.

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COLLEZIONE DELLE CERE ANATOMICHE “LUIGI CATTANEO” – ISTITUTI ANATOMICI

Via Irnerio, 48

The normal and pathological human anatomy collection of the Museum shows the path followed by 18th and 19th centuries medical sciences scholars who, after having acquired all the knowledge about the real nature of the human body, would start to study its diseases.

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CHIESA DI SAN GIOVANNI IN MONTE

Piazza San Giovanni in Monte, 3

According to an ancient tradition, the Church of San Giovanni in Monte was built by the will of the bishop Petronio in the fifth century and consecrated by the same in May 435 A.D. The building was built on a natural hillock that in ancient times was called Monte Oliveto.

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TEATRO ARENA FICO EATALYWORLD

Via Paolo Canali, 8

The Teatro Arena of FICO Eatalyworld is a large circular shaped amphitheatre located at the crossroads of FICO, where its two main streets, the decumanus and the cardo, intersect.

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ISTITUTO ORTOPEDICO RIZZOLI

Via Giulio Cesare Pupilli, 1

The San Michele in Bosco monastic complex, on the first ring of hills outside Bologna, is the historic seat of Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli. It is a historical monument of great architectural and artistic value containing art works dating back more than 400 years.

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DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL AND NEURO-MOTOR SCIENCES

Via San Vitale, 59

Situated in Bologna city centre, Aula Bigari (originally Oratorio della Compagnia dei Santi Sebastiano e Rocco) is part of University of Bologna’s Department of Biomedical and Neuro-Motor Sciences and has hosted Odontoiatria Bolognese since 1918.

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CONSERVAITOIRE GIOVAN BATTISTA MARTINI

Piazza Rossini, 2

In 1802, the city of Bologna embarked upon the project to give the city a musical high school and conservatoire, housed in the convent of S. Giacomo next the Church of S. Giacomo.

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IL ROBOT DA VINCI A PALAZZO PEPOLI

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