DOMENICO CRISCUOLO

He graduated in Medicine in 1973 from the University of Rome "La Sapienza", then he got a PhD in Haematology in 1976 from the same University and a PhD in Clinical Oncology in 1979 from the University of Pavia.

He joined Lepetit in 1975 as Clinical Research physician, and activated Phase I-III studies in Europe on cardiovascular agents and antibiotics.

In 1985 he moved to Roche Italy as Head of International Clinical Research and Drug Safety, where he established a group of 40 professionals and activated Phase I-III studies in several therapeutic areas including haematology, oncology, cardiovascular, inflammation, CNS, gastroenterology, antimicrobials and antivirals.

In 2001 he moved to Novuspharma - a biotech spin off company of Roche - as Global Head of Clinical Development, and activated Phase I-III studies on four NCEs in the oncology area. From 2003 to 2006 he joined the CRO industry, as VP Regional Operations at ICON, where he established the Italian operations in Milano, with a group of 50 professionals, while retaining responsibilities of the Paris and TelAviv offices.

He joined Creabilis Therapeutics in 2007 as Chief Medical Officer: he has the task to implement the Clinical Development programs of some NCEs entering clinical trials.

In March 2008, together with Franco Indiveri and Gilberto Filaci, and with the support of Eporgen Venture of the Bioindustry Canavese Park (Ivrea) he established Genovax, a spin-off biotech company from the University of Genova, where he acts as CEO.

He has been President of SSFA, the Italian association of pharmaceutical medicine, and President of IFAPP, the International Federation of Associations of Pharmaceutical Physicians.

He is teacher at Bocconi Business school on Project management and leadership.

Domenico Criscuolo
2008

 

FRANCO INDIVERI

Degree in Medicine, with honours, University of Genova, then post doc in Clinical and Laboratory Haematology, with honours, University of Genova.

He was Assistant Professor of Medical Pathology at the Universities of Sassari and Genova, then Associate Professor, Clinical Immunology, Genova, then Visiting Professor, Internal Medicine, Palermo, and finally Full Professor, Internal Medicine, Genova.

Among several training periods in foreign Universities, the most relevant ones are the months spent at Scripps Clinic and Research foundation, La Jolla (USA) (Dr. R.A.Reisfeld), then at the Dept of Pathology Columbia University N.Y. (USA) (Dr. Soldano Ferrone) and finally at the Dept of Microbiology and Immunology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York.

He is referee of several medical journals including The Journal of Immunology, Human immunology and Internal emergency medicine.

He held several key positions at several Italian Universities, but mainly at the University of Genova where he was Director of the School in Allergology and Clinical Immunology, then Director of the School in Diseases of Respiratory System, then Director of Post-Doc courses in Clinical and Experimental Immunology, and finally Director of the School in Biomedical Sciences and Technologies.

He is author or co-author of more than 350 scientific papers.

 

GILBERTO FILACI

Gilberto Filaci graduated in Medicine with first class honours in 1987 and completed his doctorate in Experimental Hematology at the University of Genoa, Italy, in 1995.

He spent his doctorate at Cancer Center of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) working at the characterization of immunogenicity of antigenized antibodies.

Back to Genoa, he got his specialization in Internal Medicine (1996) and was appointed as Researcher in 1999 and then as Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in 2005.

His most relevant achievements are the demonstration of the therapeutic effects of cyclosporin treatment for sclerodermic patients (Filaci et al. 1999), the identification of the immunoregulatory role exerted by apoptotic DNA (Filaci et al. 2003), the characterization of a new CD8+ Treg lymphocyte population having pathogenic relevance in both autoimmune diseases (Filaci et al. 2001) and cancer (Filaci et al. 2007), and the discovery of the process of spontaneous transgenesis of B lymphocytes (Filaci et al. 2006).

At present his research activity is focused on the identification of original ways of in vivo modulation of immune activity by peptide or gene vaccination applied to cancer (Filaci et al. 2006) and autoimmune diseases (Filaci et al. 2007).

In March 2008, together with Francesco Indiveri and Domenico Criscuolo, and with the support of Eporgen Venture of the Bioindustry Canavese Park (Ivrea), he established Genovax, a spin-off biotech company from the University of Genova, where he acts as scientific director.

 

DANIELA FENOGLIO

Graduated in Biological Sciences in 1980, with PhD in Pathology in 1987. Laboratory technician from 1990 to 2001, researcher in Internal Medicine in 2002.

Her relevant achievements are the analysis of the human T cell repertoire specific for HIV antigens, in vitro expansion of CD4T cell lines for opportunistic pathogens from normal and from HIV+ donors for molecular and fine specificity studies, transduction of opportunistic pathogen -specific T cell lines with retroviral vectors for HIV targeted gene therapy.

Her research is now focused on two aspects of human T cell compartment : a) functional and phenotipical analysis of several T cell regulatory populations and their involvement in allergy and antitumoral responses; b) follow-up of functional antigen-specific T CD4 repertoire in adaptive immune responses.

 

GIUSEPPE BALBI

Giuseppe Balbi, 34, graduated in Biological Sciences in 2001 and obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics in March 2008 at the University of Genoa.

In the past seven years he worked at the National Institute for Cancer Research (IST), Genoa, and got expertise in molecular and cell biology.

At present he works for Genovax, a biotech company at the Canavese Bioindustry Park (Ivrea), on the project GX 101 (recovery of the immunological tollerance in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus induced by a therapy of tollerogenic vaccination).

 

FRANCESCA FERRERA

Francesca Ferrera graduated in Medical Biotechnology at the University of Milan in 2000.

She completed her PhD in Clinical and Experimental Immunology at the University of Genoa. During these years, she worked at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) where she set up a tolerogenic gene vaccination protocol able to induce tolerance in an experimental model of Systemic Lupus Erithematosus.

At present she works at the Centre of Excellence of Biomedical Research (CEBR) of the University of Genoa where she is studying genes involved in autoimmune diseases.

 

MICHELE PROIETTI

Degree in Medicine in 2001, and PhD in Internal Medicine from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in 2006.

From 2007 he is following a research program in Clinical and Experimental Immunology at the Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Research (CEBR) of the University of Genova.

He has been active in clinical and laboratory research in autoimmune diseases, with a special interest in connective tissue pathology.

During the last two years, he worked on immune responses against tumours, in order to optimize experimental protocols in immunotherapy.