Paolo Costantino

Paolo Costantino is professor of molecular biology at the University La Sapienza in Rome. He is a member of EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) and a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He has been granted the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Award and the Gold Medal for Natural Sciences of the Italian National Academy of Sciences. After a degree in chemistry at La Sapienza, where he worked on the structure of complexes between DNA and antibiotics, in 1972 he moved to the California Institute of Technology (USA) working on mitochondrial protein synthesis in mammalian cells. Back in Italy in 1975, he was at Eniricerche working on nucleohistone models; since 1979 he coordinates a research group at La Sapienza working initially on Agrobacterium and subsequently on the genetics and molecular biology of several aspects of plant development. He has been founder and chairman of CNBMP (National University Consortium for Plant Molecular Biology); Head of the Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology of La Sapienza; Member of the Board of EPSO (European Plant Science Organization); Scientific Representative of Italy in ERA-Net Plant Genomics. Currently, he is Member of the Board of the Institut Pasteur in Rome; Member of the Board and of the Scientific Committee of CNBMP; Member of the Scientific Committee of INRAN (Italian Food and Nutrition Research Insitute); Coordinator of IPGN (Italian Plant Genomics Network); Member of the Steering Committee of the Italian Technology Platform (ITP) "Plants for the Future"; Representative of the Ministry of Research in the ITP "Food for Life"; Italian Delegate in the Programme Committee of Theme 2, Food Agricuture and Biotechnology in the EU Framework Programme 7.