Claudio Bordignon

Claudio Bordignon graduated in Medicine at the University of Milan, where he specialized in Internal Medicine and in Hematology. He completed his training in transplantation immunology at the SUNY, Buffalo, and in bone marrow transplantation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he begun his research in gene therapy of cancer and hereditary diseases. In the ‘90s he returned to Milan at San Raffaele where he directed the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program, and founded and led the group that performed the first worldwide experience of gene therapy in hematopoietic stem cells for hereditary diseases. In 2002 this work led to the publication of the first successful gene therapy treatment of adenosine deaminase-deficient SCID. He expanded this experience to stem cell gene therapy of other genetic diseases and AIDS, and to immune-gene therapy of cancer. Dr. Bordignon has been President of European Society of Genetic Therapy and Member of major Scientific Committees. From 1998 to 2006, he was Scientific Director at the San Raffaele Institute. Since 1998 is Professor of Hematology at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. Presently, he is Chairman and CEO of MolMed S.p.A., a biotech company dedicated to the development of new anti-cancer molecular treatments. He contributed to its foundation in 1996. In 2005, he was appointed by the European Commission as one of the 22 eminent founding members of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC). In 2010, he was appointed by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) as one of the Members of the Committee of Experts on Research Policy (CEPR), as one of the experts of Board of Directors of CNR and as one of the Members of the Selection Committee with the mandate of proposing a shortlist of candidates for the position of member of the ANVUR Board of Directors (National Agency for the Evaluation of the Universities and Research). He received numerous scientific awards and prizes from scientific societies including the Italian Association for Cancer Research, the Leukemia Society of America, the European Society for Gene Therapy, the Italian League Against Tumors, the Invernizzi Prize for Medicine and in 2010 the Life-Time Achievement Award and the Outstanding Achievement Award (ESGCT).