Alberto Mantovani

Alberto MantovaniCommendatore OMRI (born 29 October 1948) is an Italian physician and immunologist. He is Scientific Director of Istituto Clinico Humanitas (Humanitas Clinical and Research Centre), President and Founder of the Fondazione Humanitas per la Ricerca, and Professor of Pathology at the State University of Milan. He is known for his works on the roles of the immune system in the development of cancer. His research on tumour-associated macrophages (TAM, an acronym he coined) established inflammation as one of the causes of cancer. He was the first to identify monocyte chemotactic protein - 1 / CCL2 in 1983, and PTX3 in 1997. His works revealed the existence of decoy receptors in cell-signalling. He has been the most cited scientist in Italy, and one of the ten most cited immunologists worldwide.