Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. Pier Giuseppe Pelicci is Director of Research and Chairman of the Department of Experimental Oncology of the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan. He is also Full Professor at the University of Milan, President of the European School of Molecular Medicine (SEMM) and Scientific Director of Alleanza Contro il Cancro (ACC), a network of 28 cancer research hospitals promoted and coordinated by the Ministry of Health, engaged in setting up multicentre, mechanism-based clinical trials.

With a medical degree, a specialisation in Internal Medicine and a PhD in Molecular Biology, he has devoted his life to research in fields with a major impact on today’s clinical approach to treating cancer patients, such as the identification and functional characterisation of the PML-RAR and mutated-NPM oncogenes and the definition of the molecular basis of the current standard targeted treatment.

More recently he has focused on the biological and molecular characterisation of normal and cancer stem cells, on the mechanisms of DNA damage, on acquired chemoresistance at relapse in leukaemia, and on obesity as a cancer risk factor.

Salvatore Siena is Full Professor of Medical Oncology and director of the School of Specialisation in Medical Oncology at the Università degli Studi di Milano (La Statale). He is also Director of the Niguarda Cancer Center, of the Department of Hematology, Oncology and Molecular Medicine and of the Falck Division of Medical Oncology at Grande Ospedale Metropolitano Niguarda, Milan.

He graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Pavia and completed his post-doctoral training at Ospedale San Matteo in Pavia, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Before his current position he worked as researcher, assistant and deputy director at the IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori in Milan and at the IRCCS Istituto Clinico Humanitas in Rozzano (Milan).

He is committed to the clinical care of people with solid tumours and to the research and development of novel therapies. His research programmes comprise mostly phase I-II clinical studies on epithelial tumours, especially those of the digestive and respiratory organs. Results are published in peer-reviewed journals, as documented in his NCBI bibliography, accounting for 52,876 citations and an h-index of 92 according to Scopus.

His research is supported by competitive grants from the European Community, Fondazione AIRC, Fondazione Oncologia Niguarda, the Ministry of Health and Fondazione Regionale per la Ricerca Biomedica of Regione Lombardia.

Advances with an impact on clinical practice include: mobilisation and transplantation of blood stem cells (1989); the role of RAS and BRAF mutations for EGFR-targeted therapies (2007); the development of treatments for colorectal cancer and other malignancies targeting EGFR, HER2, BRAF, ROS1 and NTRK actionable alterations (from 2004 to present); and priming colorectal cancers primarily resistant to immunotherapy to become susceptible to it (2022).

He has been principal investigator or co-investigator of studies leading to the registration and clinical practice guidelines of the following therapies: cyclophosphamide and cytokines for mobilisation and transplantation of blood stem cells (1989); darbepoetin for solid tumours (2002); pegfilgrastim for solid tumours (2003); cetuximab for colorectal cancer (2004); panitumumab for colorectal cancer (2007); denosumab for solid tumours (2010); nab-paclitaxel for pancreatic cancer (2013); sorafenib for thyroid cancer (2014); trastuzumab and lapatinib (2015) and tucatinib (2022) doublets for colorectal cancer; trifluridine tipiracil for colorectal cancer (2017); encorafenib and cetuximab doublet for colorectal cancer (2019); entrectinib for NTRK- and ROS1-fusion positive solid tumours (2019); trastuzumab deruxtecan for colorectal cancer (2022); temozolomide for the induction of immune susceptibility of MMR-proficient / microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer (2022).

Since 2015 Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics has recognised him among the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds and Highly Cited Researchers. He serves on the scientific advisory board of Fondazione Istituto Nazionale Genetica Molecolare (INGM) and on the Gastro-Intestinal Tumors Faculty Group of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), and is president of Fondazione Oncologia Niguarda.

In 2020 he was awarded the Premio FIRC Guido Venosta, presented by the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella, “for achieving new diagnostic techniques and new approaches to the treatment of colon cancer through an exemplary synergy between pre-clinical research and therapy”.

Paolo Dellabona obtained a Medical Degree and a PhD in Human Genetics from the University of Turin.

Since 1992 he has been Joint Head, with Giulia Casorati, of the Experimental Immunology Unit and, from 2014 to 2023, he also headed the Division of Immunology, Transplantation and Infectious Diseases at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan.

He contributed with Giulia Casorati and Antonio Lanzavecchia to the discovery of CD1-restricted T cells and Natural Killer T (NKT) cells, which have remained a long-lasting scientific interest.

Their investigation of fundamental aspects of NKT cell biology has revealed the critical role of TCR signalling and miRNA-dependent post-transcriptional regulation in controlling the development and effector maturation of these cells. In parallel, they have unravelled the protective role of NKT cells in both haematological and solid malignancies, showing their major role in modulating the tumour microenvironment.

Recently, the Casorati-Dellabona lab has also found that auto-reactive T cells restricted for CD1 isotypes are surprisingly frequent in the immune system. Furthermore, they have shown that a class of these T cells recognises a leukaemia-associated self-lipid antigen (methyl-lysophosphatidic acid), delineating a novel adoptive immunotherapy approach with T cells retargeted against CD1+ leukaemia blasts.

I am a molecular and cell biologist with twenty years of experience as a research group leader. I have devoted my professional life to understanding the critical biological mechanisms underlying ageing and cancer.

I work at IFOM (Milan) and IGM-CNR (Pavia) in Italy.

Together with my group, we study the connection between DNA damage and disease. My team and I are widely recognised for our discoveries in telomere biology and cellular senescence.

I have been awarded the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant twice and I am a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).