Diana Boraschi is an immunologist that built her experience both in academic institutions (Italian National Council for Nuclear Energy, Italian National Research Council, National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD, Mario Negri Institute in Milan, Italy, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI) and industrial settings (the vaccine company Sclavo in Siena, Italy; the pharmaceutical company Dompé in L’Aquila, Italy). She is presently Research Director at the Institute of Protein Biochemistry of the Italian National Research Council in Naples. She has served as Director of Fellowships at the Human Frontier Science Program Organization in Strasbourg, France, and as external expert evaluator for the research programmes (FP5, FP6, FP7, H2020, EDCTP) of the EU Commission, the Singapore National Medical Council, and the US National Science Foundation. She is author of 156 peer-reviewed research articles in immunology, editor/author of 17 books, and inventor in eight patents, in addition to numerous monographic and divulging publications. She is particularly involved in higher education training activities and capacity building actions in Africa, in the field of poverty-related diseases and health care systems and delivery.
Diana Boraschi studies the mechanisms of innate defence responses, focussing in particular on the role of macrophages and inflammatory cytokines in the effector phase of defence reactions against infections and tumours. Her main interests are the receptors of the IL-1R/TLR family and their cytokine ligands (IL-1 and IL-18). A fragment of IL-1 endowed with immunostimulatory activity is now defined as the “Boraschi loop”. She is currently studying the role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of diseases (from autoimmune syndromes to degenerative diseases such as ALS, and in ageing), with particular emphasis on abnormalities in the activation of macrophages. Within the study of the initiating mechanisms causing chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, she has recently addressed the possible impact of engineered nanoparticles, and of their interaction with microbial derived factors, in initiating or modulating pathology-related inflammation. She has initiated the “Immunosafety Task Force” within the NanoSafety Cluster (an initiative sponsored by the EU Commission), a focus group aiming at defining and standardising the immunosafety assessment as central part of nanosafety regulations.
Giselle Pentón-Rol graduated with honors as a medical doctor and soon achieved a young researcher’s position at CIGB working in Molecular Genetics, Immunology and Experimental Pharmacology, to complete her first specialty degree in Clinical Biochemistry in 1993. In 1994 she was selected for a five year fellowship grant at the Mario Negri Pharmacology Institute in Milan, with Prof. Alberto Mantovani in the interleukin 1 (IL-1) system, its receptor, effectors, interacting drugs and relationships with other systems. She obtained her PhD in Pharmacological Sciences, which was validated in Cuba in the year 2002. However, her greatest achievement at that time was the birth of her twin sons in the year 2000, who are the love of her life. This, however, did not slow down her professional career, but extended her interests to medical Immunology teaching and drug research, including natural and cytoprotective products and mechanisms, mainly related to the central nervous system and autoimmune diseases. She has dozens of published papers on these topics in high impact peer-reviewed national and international scientific journals and other results have been presented in international congresses and protected by patents. Thus, in 2004 Giselle obtained her second specialty degree in Clinical Biochemistry and she later became senior researcher at CIGB (2012) and senior professor at MUH in 2014. This same year Giselle applied and obtained a special visiting researcher’s post at the University of Belo Horizonte, Brazil after having co-chaired with Dr. Boraschi, her friend and admired colleague, the Immunopharmacology Workshop of the International Congress of Immunology in Milan, 2013, where the idea of the present book was first conceived. Giselle is the head of the Cellular Biology Dpt. of the Biomedical Direction of CIGB and has received national awards from the Cuban Ministry of Public Health and Academy of Sciences, she is a member of the Cuban Societies for Immunology and Pharmacology.
