Renato Dulbecco - Nobel Prize-winning physiologist

Research led to major breakthrough in knowledge of cancer

Renato Dulbecco emigrated to the United States
1946 after studying at the University of Turin

Renato Dulbecco, a physiologist who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in drawing a link between genetic mutations and cancer, was born on this day in 1914 in Catanzaro in Calabria.

Through a series of experiments that began in the late 1950s after he had emigrated to the United States, Dulbecco and two colleagues showed that certain viruses could insert their own genes into infected cells and trigger uncontrolled cell growth, a hallmark of cancer.

Their findings transformed the course of cancer research, laying the groundwork for the linking of several viruses to human cancers, including the human papilloma virus, which is responsible for most cervical cancers.

The discovery also provided the first tangible evidence that cancer was caused by genetic mutations, a breakthrough that changed the way scientists thought about cancer and the effects of carcinogens such as tobacco smoke.

Dulbecco, who shared the Nobel Prize with California Institute of Technology (Caltech) colleagues Howard Temin and David Baltimore, then examined how viruses use DNA to store their genetic information and, in his studies of breast cancer, pioneered a technique for identifying cancer cells by the proteins present on their surface.

Dulbecco found that viruses such as the human
papilloma virus could cause cell mutations

His proposal in 1986 to catalogue all human genes can be seen as the beginnings of the Human Genome Project, which was completed in 2003.

The son of a civil engineer, Dulbecco grew up in Liguria after his family moved from Catanzaro to the coastal city of Imperia. He graduated from high school at 16 and went on to the University of Turin, receiving his medical degree in 1936. He became friends there with two other future Nobel prizewinners, Rita Levi-Montalcini and Salvador Luria, who were fellow students.

Immediately upon graduating, he was required to do two years’ military service. He was discharged in 1938 but soon afterwards called up again as Italy entered the Second World War, joining the Italian Army as a medical officer.

His role eventually took him to the Russian front, where he suffered an injury to his shoulder that meant he was sent back to Italy to recuperate. Disillusioned with Mussolini and horrified at learning of the fate of Jews under Hitler, he decided not to return to the Army, joining the resistance instead. He stationed himself in a remote village outside Turin, tending to injured partisans.

After the war, he was briefly involved with politics, firstly on the Committee for National Liberation in Turin and then on the city council, but soon returned to Turin University to study physics and conduct biological research.

Dulbecco's fellow Turin University graduate
Salvador Duria also moved to America

With the encouragement of Levi-Montalcini, who would win a Nobel Prize in 1986 for her work in neurobiology, in 1946, he moved to United States, rejoining Luria, who shared a Nobel in 1969 for discoveries about the genetics of bacteria, at Indiana University, where they studied viruses. In the summer of 1949 he moved to Caltech, where he began his work on animal oncoviruses.

Dulbecco worked with Dr. Marguerite Vogt on a method of determining the amount of polio virus present in cell culture, a step that was vital in the development of polio vaccine, before becoming intrigued by a thesis written by Howard Temin on the connection between viruses and cancer.

He left Caltech in 1962 to move to the Salk Institute, a polio research facility in San Diego, and then in 1972 to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) in London.

There was a mixed reaction in Italy when it was learned that ‘their’ Nobel Prize winner had become an American citizen. In fact, his Italian citizenship was revoked, although when he moved back to Italy in 1993 to spend four years as president of the Institute of Biomedical Technologies at National Council of Research in Milan he was made an honorary citizen.

Married twice, with three children, Dulbecco died in La Jolla, California, in 2012, three days before what would have been his 98th birthday.

From its elevated position, Catanzaro has views towards
the Ionian Sea and the resort of Catanzaro Lido

Travel tip:

Occupying a position 300m (980ft) above the Gulf of Squillace, Catanzaro is known as the City of the Two Seas because, from some vantage points, it is possible to see the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north of the long peninsula occupied by Calabria as well as the Ionian Sea to the south.  The historic centre, which sits at the highest point of the city, includes a 16th century cathedral built on the site of a 12th century Norman cathedral which, despite being virtually destroyed by bombing in 1943, has been impressively restored.  The city is about 15km (9 miles) from Catanzaro Lido, which has a long white beach typical of the Gulf of Squillace.

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The waterfront of the Ligurian port city of Imperia, with
the Basilica of San Maurizio on top of the hill

Travel tip:

The beautiful city of Imperia, on Liguria's Riviera Poniente about 120km (75 miles) west of Genoa and 60km (37 miles) from the border with France, came into being in 1923 when the neighbouring ports of Porto Maurizio and Oneglia, either side of the Impero river, were merged along with several surrounding villages to form one conurbation.  Oneglia, once the property of the Doria family in the 13th century, has become well known for cultivating flowers and olives. Porto Maurizio, originally a Roman settlement called Portus Maurici, has a classical cathedral dedicated to San Maurizio, which was built by Gaetano Cantoni and completed in the early 19th century.

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More reading:

How Salvador Luria reached the United States after fleeing Paris on a bicycle

Grazia Deledda - the first Italian woman to win a Nobel Prize

The first physiologist to explain human movement

Also on this day:

1876: The birth of opera singer and director Giovanni Zenatello

1905: The birth of industrialist Enrico Piaggio

1921: The birth of actress Giulietta Masina

1990: The death of Autogrill pioneer Mario Pavesi

(Picture credits: Catanzaro view by Salvatore Migliari; Imperia waterfront by BMK)

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Hieronymus Fabricius - anatomist and surgeon

Research pioneer known as “Father of Embryology”

Girolamo Fabrizio spent much of his academic
life at the University of Padua

The pioneering anatomist and physiologist known in academic history as Hieronymus Fabricius, whose Italian name was Girolamo Fabrizio, was born on this day in 1537 in Acquapendente, in Lazio.

Fabrizio, who designed the first permanent theatre for public anatomical dissections, advanced the knowledge of the make-up of the human body in many areas, including the digestive system, the eyes and ears, and the veins.

But his most significant discoveries were in embryology.  He investigated the foetal development of many animals and humans and produced the first detailed description of the placenta. For this he became known as the "Father of Embryology".

Fabrizio spent most of his life at the University of Padua, where he was a student under the guidance of Gabriele Falloppio, who discovered the tube connecting the ovaries with the uterus that became known as the Fallopian tube.

He succeeded Falloppio as chair of surgery and anatomy, holding the post from 1562 to 1613 and building a reputation that attracted students from all of Europe.

Among his pupils were the English anatomist William Harvey, as well as Giulio Casseri and Adriaan van den Spiegel, both of whom went on to become significant anatomists in Italy. Indeed, both also occupied the chair of surgery and anatomy at the University of Padua.

The Teatro Anatomico at the University of Padua was
designed by Girolamo Fabrizio

Fabrizio’s dissections of animals enabled him to make discoveries about the formation of the fetus, the structure of the esophagus, stomach and intestines, and the workings of the eye, the ear, and the larynx. He was the first to note that the pupil of the eye changes in size.

He was the first to identify the membranous folds that he called "valves" in the interior of veins, which are now understood to prevent retrograde flow of blood within them.

Fabrizio also described the cerebral fissure separating the temporal lobe from the frontal lobe of the brain, although it is only recently that he has been credited with the discovery.

The statue of Girolamo Fabrizio in
his home town of Acquapendente

He was a practising surgeon as well as an anatomist. Extraordinarily, the technique he invented to perform a tracheotomy is very similar to the procedure used in the operation today.

Fabrizio never actually performed such an operation himself, but in his writing he described using a vertical incision and a tracheostomy tube, a short, straight cannula to which he added wings to prevent the tube from disappearing into the trachea.

The technique may have been used for the first time by the surgeon Marco Aurelio Severino during a diptheria epidemic in Naples in 1610.

Fabrizio died in Padua in 1619 at the age of 82. There is a monument to him in his home town of Acquapendente.

The castle at Torre Alfina, near Acquapendente

Travel tip:

Acquapendente is a medieval town in northern Lazio, about 140km (87 miles) north of Rome, just under 30km (18 miles) west of Orvieto. It takes its name - literally translated as ‘hanging water’ - from the small waterfalls that flow into the Paglia river. Among the main sights is the Duomo di Acquapendente, which developed from a former Benedictine monastery, developed in the 12th century. A short distance from Acquapendente is he castle of Torre Alfina, the central tower of which was built by the Lombard king Desiderius.

Palazzo Bo, the historic home of the University of Padua

Travel tip:

The founding of the University of Padua is officially recorded to have taken place in 1222 but this was actually the first time it was mentioned in an historical document, which means it is certainly older. It was formed when a large group of students and professors left the University of Bologna in search of more academic freedom. The first subjects to be taught were law and theology.

Also on this day:

1470: The birth of the poet Pietro Bembo, lover of Lucrezia Borgia

1943: The birth of the veteran singer Al Bano

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Paolo Mascagni – physician

Scientist was first to map the human lymphatic system

Paolo Mascagni studied geology before turning
to human science and anatomy

The physician Paolo Mascagni, whose scientific research enabled him to create the first map of the complete human lymphatic system, was born on this day in 1755 in Pomarance, a small town in Tuscany about 40km (25 miles) inland from the western coastline.

Mascagni described his findings in a book with detailed illustrations of every part of the lymphatic system he had identified, which was to prove invaluable to physicians wanting to learn more about a part of the human body vital to the regulation of good health.

He also commissioned the sculptor Clemente Susini to create a full-scale model in wax of the lymphatic system, which can still be seen at the Museum of Human Anatomy at the University of Bologna.

Later he created another significant tome, his Anatomia Universa, which comprises 44 enormous copperplate illustrations that set out to bring together in one book the full extent of human knowledge about the anatomy of the human body.  The ‘book’ in the event was so large it was never bound, each plate measuring more than 3ft 6ins (1.07m) by 2ft 6ins (0.76m), designed in such a way that those from the same plane of dissection can be placed together and show the whole body in life size.

Mascagni was the son of Aurelio Mascagni and Elisabetta Burroni, both belonging to ancient noble families from Chiusdino, a village in the province of Siena.

An illustration from Mascagni's celebrated
book on the human lymphatic system

He studied at the University of Siena, where his teacher of anatomy was Pietro Tabarrini, and graduated in philosophy and medicine in 1771. By his final year, he had been appointed assistant to Tabarrini and succeeded his mentor as Professor of Anatomy after blindness forced him to retire.

As a young man, Mascagni had been keen on geology and wrote a number of papers on the thermal springs of Siena and Volterra. Later, he would successfully identify boric acid in the waters and suggest ways to produce from it the industrial compound now known as borax.

After graduating, his focus turned to the human lymphatic system, feeling that he owed it to Tabarrini to do what he could to advance his teacher’s research into the workings of the human body. He decided that he would not work in clinical medicine but devote himself entirely to teaching and research.

His work was interrupted for a while by the political upheaval of the late 18^th century, when Tuscany was occupied by the French. He became involved in politics somewhat reluctantly, becoming Superintendent of the Arts, Sciences and Charitable Institutions of Siena, and this placed him in constant conflict with the French authorities over their seizing of personal and public property.

Unfortunately, his involvement with the French was misinterpreted when Austria regained control of the area. Accused of having Jacobin sympathies, he was arrested and imprisoned for seven months.

The statue of Mascagni in the courtyard of the
Uffizi in Florence, where he lived for some years

On his release, he was appointed a professor of anatomy at the University of Pisa and began lecturing at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence before becoming a full professor at the University of Florence.

In his research into the lymphatic system, Mascagni perfected a technique whereby he injected mercury as a contrast medium into the peripheral lymphatic networks of a human cadaver and by following the mercury’s flow to other parts of the system was able to produce detailed diagrams and models.

This brought him fame all over Europe, yet he did not limit himself to merely describing the anatomy of the lymphatic system.  By his research into its physiology and pathology he was able to highlight its importance in fighting disease in the human body, the understanding of which helped in the evolution of new treatments.

Mascagni died in 1815 during a stay at his estate in Castelletto, near Chiusdino, the village near Siena where his family originated and where he spent most of his free time. He had contracted a pernicious fever, probably malaria.

His memory has been commemorated in several ways. The street where he was born in Pomerance is now called Via Paolo Mascagni; the hamlet where the family lived, 33km (20 miles) southwest of Siena, is now known as Castelletto Mascagni, and there is another Via Paolo Mascagni in nearby Chiusdino.

A statue of Paolo Mascagni can be found in a niche in the courtyard of the Uffizi in Florence, as one of the great men of Tuscany.  His house in Florence was in Via Fiesolana.  There is also a monument to him in the Accademia dei Fisiocritici in Siena, of which he was president.

One of the medieval gates into the town of Pomarance

Travel tip:

The town of Pomarance, where Mascagni was born, sits on a hill overlooking Val di Cecina, on the border between the provinces of Pisa, 80km (50 miles) to the north, and Siena, 69km (43 miles) to the east. The main square, Piazza de Larderel, is named after Francois Jacques de Lardarel, a 19^th century French engineer who worked in the area on the exploitation of geothermal energy from the steam emitted by lagoons in the area.

The ancient village of Chiusdino occupies a hilltop position

Travel tip:

The ancient village of Chiusdino dates back to the seventh or eighth century, when it was a Longobard settlement, sitting on the top of a hill, surrounded by walls. Much of the history of the town surrounds the legend of San Galgano, who was an arrogant, licentious son of a local feudal lord in the 12^th century who changed his ways after a supposed visit from Saint Michael the Archangel, who told him he must give up his excesses, prompting Galgano to say it would be easier to cut a rock with a sword. As if to prove it, he launched a sword thrust at a rock and was amazed when the blade plunged into the rock as easily as a knife into butter. He knelt to pray and vowed to become a hermit. The sword in the rock remains on display in a chapel, the Rotonda della Spada, that was built around it.

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Camillo Golgi – neuroscientist

Nobel prize winner whose name lives on in medical science

Camillo Golgi expanded knowledge of
the human nervous system

Camillo Golgi, who is recognised as the greatest neuroscientist and biologist of his time, died on this day in 1926 in Pavia.

He was well known for his research into the central nervous system and discovering a staining technique for studying tissue, sometime called Golgi’s method, or Golgi’s staining.

In 1906, Golgi and a Spanish biologist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system.

Golgi was born in 1843 in Corteno, a village in the province of Brescia in Lombardy.

The village was later renamed Corteno Golgi in his honour.

In 1860 Golgi went to the University of Pavia to study medicine. After graduating in 1865 he worked in a hospital for the Italian army and as part of a team investigating a cholera epidemic in the area around Pavia.

He resumed his academic studies under the supervision of Cesare Lombroso, an expert in medical psychology, and wrote a thesis about mental disorders. As he became more and more interested in experimental medicine he started attending the Institute of General Pathology headed by Giulio Bizzozero, who was to influence Golgi’s research publications. They became close friends and Golgi later married his niece, Lina Aletti.

Financial pressure led Golgi to work at the Hospital for the Chronically Ill in Abbiategrasso near Milan and while he was there he set up a simple laboratory in a former hospital kitchen.

A statue within the campus of Pavia University
commemorates Golgi's life and work

It was in his improvised laboratory that he made his most notable discoveries. His major achievement was the development of staining technique for studying nerve tissue called the black reaction, using potassium bichromate and silver nitrate, which was more accurate than other methods and was later to become known as Golgi’s method.

In 1885 he joined the faculty of histology at the University of Pavia and then later became Professor of Histology. He also became Professor of Pathology at the San Matteo hospital.  His connection with the university is commemorated with a statue within the grounds, while a plaque marks the house in nearby Corso Strada Nuova where he lived.

He was rector of the University of Pavia for two separate periods and during the First World War he directed the military hospital, Collegio Borromeo, in Pavia.

Golgi retired in 1818 and continued his research in a private laboratory. He died on 21 January1926.

In 1900 he had been named as a Senator by King Umberto I. He received honorary doctorates from many universities and was commemorated on a stamp by the European community in 1994.

The Golgi apparatus, the Golgi tendon organ, the Golgi tendon reflex and certain nerve cells are all named after him.

The Golgi museum in Via Brescia, Corteno Golgi

Travel tip:

Corteno Golgi, a village of around 2,000 people is situated in the High Camonica Valley, about 100km (62 miles) north of Brescia in the Orobie Alps in Lombardy. It has a museum dedicated to Camillo Golgi in Via Brescia. For more information visit www.museogolgi.it.

The covered bridge over the Ticino river at Pavia

Travel tip:

Pavia, where Golgi lived for a large part of his life, is a city in Lombardy, about 46km (30 miles) south of Milan, known for its ancient university, which was founded in 1361, and its famous Certosa, a magnificent monastery complex north of the city that dates back to 1396. A pretty covered bridge over the River Ticino leads to Borgo Ticino, where the inhabitants claim to be the true people of Pavia and are of Sabaudian origin.

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