PROFESSIONAL and PERSONAL BIO-SKETCH I developed my doctoral work at the Max-Planck-Institute für Molekulare Genetik (Berlin, Germany). Thereafter I was visiting scientist at the Karolinska Institute, Nobel Laboratory (Stockholm, Sweden) and at the Biokemiskt Centrum, Dept. of Molecular Virology (Uppsala, Sweden). I received fellowships from the European Molecular Biology Organization and from Italian private and public foundations. I also received research and travelling grants from homologous agencies (e.g. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Fondazione “Institut Pasteur-Cenci Bolognetti”, Ministero della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica). I was invited professor (short-term) at the University of Mexico City and presently I have research and teaching contacts with different universities (Health Science Center - State University of New York at Brooklyn, the Max-Planck-Institute für Molekulare Genetik, the Department of Biology at the Humboldt-Universität (Berlin, Germany) and the University of the Witswatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa). Recently I was selected by the organization ERASMUS Mundus ACP, to teach molecular biology at the University of Antananarivo, where I spent a total three months. From 2007 to 2010 I was relocated on a temporary basis to the Italian Space Agency where I covered the role of program manager and collaborated to the development of simulated missions to Mars. I was also selected by IMPAKT (ERASMUS) to visit for one month the the Institute of Science and Technology (Surabaya – Indonesia). I am author of two essays (in Italian) on genetic engineering and molecular evolution, a third one is in preparation. I collaborate with the Italian Medical Encyclopaedia where I wrote several different entries, free-lance writer for popular science magazines and translator from English into Italian for scientific publishers and pharmaceutical industries. I participated and communicated results in over 90 different national and international meetings held in Europe, Russia and USA, Canada and India. My scientific production consists of about 90 papers in international peer-reviewed journals (and invited book chapters) of molecular biology, biochemistry and biophysics and about 30 articles in popular science magazines. I was invited speakers at several international meetings.