Grafting mouse brains: from neurocarcinogenesis to neurodegeneration.

Abstract

When I received a telephone call in early July 1998 breaking the news that I was to be awarded the EMBO gold medal, I could not help but remember the awe with which I had been looking upon my then‐supervisor Erwin Wagner a decade ago, when he was awarded the very same prize. Since I was asked to write an autobiographical review of my scientific activities, I dug out the medal review by Erwin Wagner (1990) in an attempt to gather some inspiration. The latter document is remarkable in its scientific clarity, but also in its candor, typical of Erwin's personality. Along lines similar to those of Erwin Wagner's review article, I will try to trace my scientific motives and achievements, and also describe the impact of the scientists who taught me how to research the molecular bases of diseases. In 1979, the Italian undergraduate curriculum in the medical sciences was utterly uninviting. Therefore, although my home town of Pavia sports a distinguished university, after no more than one semester I gave up my enrollment at the medical faculty and decided to continue my studies in Germany. Three years into medical school in Freiburg im Breisgau, I felt the urge to learn the methods of basic science. Thanks to the mediation of an old friend, Gianpaolo Merlini (then a postdoc in New York), I was given the opportunity to undertake an elective in Soldano Ferrone's laboratory at Columbia University, where Patrizio Giacomini taught me how to make monoclonal antibodies, and introduced me to the then‐omnipresent methods of immunochemistry: sandwich assays, radioimmunoprecipitation, immunofluorescence and so on. In 1983, as nave as this may seem with hindsight, immunotherapy of cancer seemed to lie just around the corner. A wealth of tumor antigens was being discovered, and the booming technology of monoclonal antibodies …