Prof. Maria Rescigno, Vice Rector for Research at Humanitas University and Deputy Scientific Director for Basic Research at IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, has been elected to the prestigious Accademia dei Lincei, the world’s oldest scientific academy, founded in Rome in 1603.

With a maximum of 540 members, of which only 360 are Italians, it is considered the most important cultural institution in Italy and has counted intellectuals and scientists such as Galileo Galilei among its members.

“Becoming a member of the Accademia dei Lincei is a great honor and opportunity for me: the Academy plays a fundamental role in promoting science and culture, and despite its age, it has a very modern mission at its heart, which is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and knowledge beyond disciplinary boundaries and specializations,” says Maria Rescigno. “I am happy to actively contribute to this mission.”

In addition to Maria Rescigno, among the elected members of the Accademia dei Lincei there are also Alberto Mantovani, Scientific Director of IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital and Honorary Professor at Humanitas University, and Michela Matteoli, Director of the Neuroscience Research Program at Humanitas and Full Professor of Pharmacology at Humanitas University.

About Maria Rescigno

Maria Rescigno graduated in Biology in 1990 from the University of Milan. From 1991 to 1994, she worked as a visiting scholar in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, UK, and from 1995 to 1999, she conducted research at the National Research Council (CNR) in Milan, where she obtained her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology.

Before joining Humanitas, Maria Rescigno was Director of the Dendritic Cell and Immunotherapy Research Unit at the European Institute of Oncology from 2001 to 2017, and, since 2014, Associate Professor at the University of Milan.

Today, Maria Rescigno is Vice Rector for Research at Humanitas University, where she is a Full Professor of General Pathology, and she heads the Mucosal Immunity and Microbiota Lab at IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, where she also serves as Deputy Scientific Director for Basic Research. In her lab, she studies the interaction between host and microbiota in various pathological contexts, including cancer, and the use of bacteria to induce an anti-tumor response.

She has been an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) since 2011 and a member of the EMBO Council since 2019, where she serves as Chair starting in 2024.

She has received prestigious grants from the European Commission and especially the European Research Council (ERC): the ERC Starting Grant in 2007, the ERC Proof of Concept in 2012, and the ERC Consolidator in 2013. Among her many awards and recognitions, she received the Avon Award as ‘Iconic Woman of the City of Milan’ (2011), an honorary mention from the Belgian Embassy (2022), the Rome Award for Enterprise, Economics, and Social Affairs (2022), the De Sanctis Award for Social Health (2023), and the Pezcoller-Marina Larcher Fogazzaro-EACR Women in Cancer Research Award (2024).

In 2016, she founded the startup Postbiotica, which won the national Bioupper award in 2017 and the international Mystart BCN award as the best innovative startup.