Barbara Bottazzi is head of unit at Humanitas Research Hospital. She graduated in Biological Sciences Magna cum Laudae at the University of Pavia, Italy, and obtained her PhD from in Pharmacology in 1983, while working in the Laboratory of Human Immunology at the “Mario Negri” research institute in Milan.

She has been a visiting scientist at the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology of the Western Infirmary of Glasgow (1983), at the Laboratory of Molecular Immunoregulation of the Frederick Cancer Research Facility (NIH), USA (1985-1986), at the University of Oxford Sir William Dunn School of Pathology (2003) and at the Institute for Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine of the University of Cape Town (2007).

Her main research interests are the study of the molecular mechanisms of innate immunity and inflammation, especially long pentraxin PTX3 and other innate immunity soluble molecules that are associated to macrophage polarization, such as the migration stimulating factor MSF and the Membrane Spanning 4-Domains A4A (MS4A4A) protein.

Bottazzi’s research activity is documented by more than 200 publications in international peer reviewed journals, more than 20 chapters on scientific books, several abstracts at congresses. Her h-index, as of January 2023 and according to Scopus, is 64.