Laura Perin, Napoleone Ferrara, and Matteo Garbelotto

Napoleone Ferrara (born 26 July 1956,

Catania Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...

), is an Italian-American molecular biologist who joined

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

Moores Cancer Center The Rebecca and John Moores Cancer Center is the region's only NCI-designated Cancer Center in La Jolla, California, part of UC San Diego Health and affiliated with the University of California San Diego. It is supported, in part, by the National ...

in 2013 after a career in Northern California at the biotechnology giant

Genentech Genentech, Inc., is an American biotechnology corporation headquartered in South San Francisco, California. It became an independent subsidiary of Roche in 2009. Genentech Research and Early Development operates as an independent center within R ...

, where he pioneered the development of new treatments for

angiogenic Angiogenesis is the physiological process through which new blood vessels form from pre-existing vessels, formed in the earlier stage of vasculogenesis. Angiogenesis continues the growth of the vasculature by processes of sprouting and splittin ...

diseases such as cancer, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and

diabetic retinopathy Diabetic retinopathy (also known as diabetic eye disease), is a medical condition in which damage occurs to the retina due to diabetes mellitus. It is a leading cause of blindness in developed countries. Diabetic retinopathy affects up to 80 perc ...

. At Genentech, he discovered

VEGF Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF, ), originally known as vascular permeability factor (VPF), is a signal protein produced by many cells that stimulates the formation of blood vessels. To be specific, VEGF is a sub-family of growth factors ...

—and made the first anti-VEGF antibody—which suppresses growth of a variety of tumors. These findings helped lead to development of the first clinically available

angiogenesis inhibitor An angiogenesis inhibitor is a substance that inhibits the growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis). Some angiogenesis inhibitors are endogenous and a normal part of the body's control and others are obtained exogenously through drugs, pharmaceuti ...

, bevacizumab (Avastin), which prevents the growth of new blood vessels into a solid tumor and which has become part of standard treatment for a variety of cancers. Ferrara's work led also to the development of ranibizumab (

Lucentis Ranibizumab, sold under the brand name Lucentis among others, is a monoclonal antibody fragment ( Fab) created from the same parent mouse antibody as bevacizumab. It is an anti-angiogenic that is approved to treat the "wet" type of age-related ...

), a drug that is highly effective at preventing vision loss in intraocular neovascular disorders.

Education

Ferrara received his medical degree from the

University of Catania The University of Catania ( it, Università degli Studi di Catania) is a university located in Catania, Sicily. Founded in 1434, it is the oldest university in Sicily, the 13th oldest in Italy, and the 29th oldest university in the world. With a ...

, Italy, in 1981, and joined Genentech in 1988. He did his postdoctoral research at

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

Current research

UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center The Rebecca and John Moores Cancer Center is the region's only NCI-designated Cancer Center in La Jolla, California, part of UC San Diego Health and affiliated with the University of California San Diego. It is supported, in part, by the National ...

, Ferrara, a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

since 2006, serves as Senior Deputy Director for Basic Science and is a Distinguished Professor of Pathology in the UC San Diego School of Medicine, where he will continue cancer drug research targeting angiogenesis. He is presently focusing on investigating mechanisms of tumor angiogenesis alternative to VEGF, in particular the role of factors produced by myeloid cells and fibroblasts in mediating resistance to VEGF inhibitors.

Selected honors and awards

For his VEGF discovery, he won a

Lasker Award The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1945 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, which was ...

in 2010. In 2013, he was awarded the $3 million

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of the ...

for his work. He has received numerous other awards, including the General Motors Cancer Research Award (2006), the ASCO Science of Oncology Award (2007), the Pezcoller Foundation/AACR International Award (2009), the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research (2011), and

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

's Innovation Award for bioscience in 2012. Grand Prix scientifique de la Fondation Lefoulon-Delalande in 2005. In September 2014, Ferrara was awarded the António Champalimaud Vision Award, awarded by the

Champalimaud Foundation The Champalimaud Foundation ( pt, Fundação Champalimaud) is a private biomedical research foundation. It was created according to the will of the late entrepreneur António de Sommer Champalimaud, in 2004. The complete name of the foundation ...

.
Ferrara Receives Champalimaud Award for Role in Eye Disease Therapy
', UC San Diego

References

1956 births Living people Italian molecular biologists Genentech people University of California, San Diego faculty Winners of The Economist innovation awards Recipients of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award University of California, San Francisco alumni Scientists from Sicily Members of the National Academy of Medicine {{italy-biologist-stub