Civitavecchia, Rome, Bethesda
I was born in Civitavecchia in 1951, but at a very young age moved to Rome where I was
educated from the primary school level through to the completion of my degree in medicine
and surgery in 1978. After graduating, I went on to the residency program in neurology.
Subsequently, in the summer of 1982, I received a study grant from the NIH (a Fogarty Fellowship)
and was thus able to complete my scientific training at Louis Sokoloff’s laboratory at the
National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda.
Under Lou Sokoloff I performed experimental studies, investigating the effects of drugs on the
nervous system and changes in cerebral glucose metabolism in conditions of hyper and hypoglycaemia, and hyperinsulinaema.
The Fogarty fellowship was extended until the summer of 1985.
Clinical research at the National Research Council: the mid 1980s and the early 1990s
On returning to Italy, having won a position as a researcher at the Italian National Research Council (CNR),
I began working in the field of neuroimaging and in the development of
radiopharmaceuticals at the Institute of Advanced Biomedical Technologies in Milan, within the San Raffaele section directed by Ferruccio Fazio. This experience lead to my decision
to specialise in nuclear medicine.
I had already begun using SPET for cerebral perfusion studies in ischaemia and PET for myocardial viability assessment
and therapeutic stratification of patients with ischaemic myopathy when I became involved in a series of studies of
neurological patients affected by epilepsy, fatal insomnia, dementia, lupus, coma, etc. and SPET studies of patients
with movement disorders, Parkinson’s disease and parkinsonisms.
We also used PET to perform studies on adolescents
with neurofibromatosis and subsequently in subjects affected by Prader-Willy syndrome. In this period, we studied
patients with thyroid disorders, ocular disorders and brain tumours, and used PET with experimental radiopharmaceuticals,
such as oestradiol in meningiomas and spiperone in hypophyseal adenomas.
Thanks to the close proximity of colleagues
specialising in endocrinology, I also had the opportunity to take part in studies of kidney and pancreas
transplanted diabetic patients.
These were years in which I was able to witness, at close hand, the extraordinary evolution of neuroimaging
techniques used in the study of cognitive processes and to learn the basics of these technologies.
Given my background with Sokoloff, however, I was interested not only in clinical applications, but also in studying,
the methodological aspects of PET. We were involved in the use of different
image registration techniques, the repositioning of patients with different imaging
equipment and the standardisation of statistical analyses.
My academic career at the “University of Milan”: the mid-1990s onwards
Over the years my academic career had also been taking shape and in 1992 I was appointed associate professor
of diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy at the University of Milan; the formal convention between the University and the San Raffaele, allowed me to continue
my work as teacher and clinician at San Raffaele for a few more years.
In 2000 I was made an ordinary (full) professor at
the university (in the same discipline).
During this period I developed a new PET-cyclotron project. This project
could not, in the end, be developed at the Luigi Sacco Hospital in Milan as originally planned, and has now been
implemented at the “San Paolo” Hospital in Milan
(where I am director of the Unit of Nuclear Medicine) under a collaboration
agreement between the hospital and the University of Milan.
While waiting for this project to come to fruition, over the past ten years I have nevertheless continued my research activity,
developing (in collaboration with colleagues from my own and from other faculties) a new line of research in the field of
pre-clinical molecular imaging. We use a number of techniques, including reporter genes and various imaging equipment.
I have also pursued the application of imaging techniques to radiotherapy at the
European Institute of Oncology in Milan and the use of PET studies in patients with mild cognitive impairment, and in HIV-infected subjects.
At the University of Milan I teach degree courses in medicine and surgery, in specialist and masters degree courses in health-related areas, and
to residents in various medical disciplines, including nuclear medicine, radiology and radiotherapy.
Becoming established at “San Paolo”: the present
My career took an important turn in 2006, when I was appointed director of the Unit of Nuclear Medicine at the “San Paolo” Hospital in Milan.
More recently, I became director of its Department of Diagnostic Services, which, in addition to the nuclear medicine unit,
also includes the units of radiodiagnostics, pathology and molecular biology and the diagnostic laboratory.
These appointments have provided me with stimulating new organizational challenges and are a source of great satisfaction.
Academic and Government assignments
In addition to my teaching, research and clinical work, I have had various academic roles, including sitting on several
governing bodies of the University of Milan. For the past five years I have been vice-president of the university’s
Scientific Research and Technological Transfer Committee; I was director of the Institute of Radiological Sciences
from 2002 to 2008, the year in which it merged with the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Technologies.
I have also been director of the masters degree course in health sciences and diagnostic techniques (2006 to 2008),
director of the residency program in nuclear medicine (2001 to 2007, and again for three years starting in 2010), and director of the degree course in radiology
techniques (2001 to 2005). A recent undertaking was the establishment of the university’s molecular and cellular
imaging research centre, “IMAGO”, of which I am currently director. I recently became a member of the National
Scientific Research Commission of the Italian Ministry of Health, first as an expert
in diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy and subsequently as a full institutional member, involved in the assessment
of funding applications in collaboration with Toni Scarpa, Director of the Center for Scientific Review of the NIH. Since 2010 I have been nominated in the Consiglio Superiore di sanità
and assigned to the fifth section: pharmaceuticals and medical devices. I have been appointed Member of the Board of Directors and elected Vice-president of the National Institute of Molecular Genetics as January 2011 for a five-year term.
Scientific associations and editorial activity
Other activities include my involvement, with the European Association of Nuclear Medicine as an executive board member
and my fourteen-year tenure (1995-2008) as editor-in-chief of the Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
(the official journal of the Italian Association of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, AIMN). During this time, with the support of AIMN,
I renewed the journal’s approach and elevated it to an impact factor of 2.0. I am also co-editor of the European Journal
of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. From 2006 to 2010, I have published a monthly column in this journal
devoted to the latest developments and debates in the field of nuclear medicine and intended as a source of stimulation
to the medical community working in this field. In March 2009 I was elected President of the Italian Association of
Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging for a two-year term. In march 2011 I have been re-elected for another two-year term.