First Meeting of the New HT Scientific Committee

Yesterday the new Scientific Committee of the Human Technopole Foundation met for the first time. Appointed by the Supervisory Board, the Scientific Committee is the Foundation’s advisory body and it is made up of prominent Italian and international scientists active in the life sciences field. During the meeting, the Scientific Committee unanimously elected Prof. Walter Ricciardi as its Chair.

Milan, 29 March 2022 – Human Technopole’s development continues: the Scientific Committee, appointed by the Supervisory Board on 28 January following a complex selection process, met yesterday for the first time. The Committee is made up of 14 members, coming from some of the most important scientific institutions in Italy, Europe and the United States.  These experts, nominated by the Supervisory Board among eminent scientists, are external to the Institute and have an important advisory role under the Foundation’s Statute: they are responsible for assessing the protocols of the scientific activities in terms of both quality and consistency with Human Technopole’s multi-year plans.

The Scientific Committee, complements and replaces the temporary Scientific Advisory Board which, from November 2019 till today, carried out the same tasks during Human Technopole’s initial phase.

The members of the Scientific Committee appointed by the Foundation’s Supervisory Board are:

• Geneviève Almouzni, Director of Research Exceptional Class at CNRS, Institut Curie, France;
• Andrea Ballabio, Director of the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM), Italy;
• Pietro De Camilli, Director of the Program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair (CNNR), Yale School of Medicine, USA;
• Kristian Helin, CEO and President of the Institute of Cancer Research, UK;
• Alberto Mantovani, Scientific Director of Istituto Clinico Humanitas, Italy;
• Margaret McMahon, Global Head Data Science, Roche Information Solutions Data & Analytics, Switzerland;
• Gennaro Melino, Professor of Biochemistry and Director of the Torvergata Oncoscience Research Centre (TOR) at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy;
• Luca Pani, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Miami and Professor of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, USA & Italy;
• Alfio Quarteroni, Professor and Director of MOX (Laboratory of Modeling and Scientific Computing), Politecnico di Milano, Italy;
• Walter Ricciardi, Professor of Hygiene and Public Health, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy;
• Nadia Rosenthal, Scientific Director of The Jackson Laboratory, USA;
• Michael Snyder, Director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA;
• Giulio Superti-Furga, Scientific Director of the CeMM Research Centre on Molecular Medicine, Austria;
• Fiona Watt, Director of the European Molecular Biology Organization, Germany.

During its first meeting the Scientific Committee unanimously elected Prof. Walter Ricciardi as its Chair.

“We are honoured to be able to count on the contribution and experience of such prominent scientists in our Scientific Committee: it is an important testimony of the value of the Human Technopole project and the quality of the research carried out at HT. The Scientific Committee is the main consultation and advisory body of the Foundation, and it therefore represents a guarantee of Human Technopole’s standards. I wish newly elected Chair Prof. Walter Ricciardi and all the members good luck in carrying out their work” said Human Technopole Foundation President Marco Simoni.

Iain Mattaj, director of Human Technopole, comments: “With the growth and the consolidation of Human Technopole and its laboratories, which are now operating with over 100 scientific staff, the number of scientific projects is increasing considerably. For this reason, the role of the Scientific Committee in providing general guidance to Human Technopole’s recruitment, scientific activities and programmatic plan will increase in importance. I would like to thank the members of the Scientific Committee for the valuable role they will play”.

The creation of the Scientific Committee marks an important step forward in the Institute’s growth process which, despite the pandemic, has not suffered any major setbacks. In just four years, since the establishment of the Foundation in May 2018, the project has developed from scratch and can now count on three renovated and functioning buildings (Palazzo Italia, North Pavilion, South Pavilion) and the first operational laboratories.