Dr. Ronca is a hepatologist whose main area of expertise is autoimmune liver diseases and immunotolerance. He has a medical degree from the University of Pavia (Summa cum laude) and a master degree in advanced Hepatology and Transplant Medicine.

Dr. Ronca’s research career has been intially focused on risk stratification and epidemiology of biliary diseases and surgical treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. He moved to the UK in 2019 as a research fellow and was awarded a NIHR academic clinical fellowship to study the role of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC).

During his fellowship, he collaborated in the design and execution of a cell-therapy-based clinical trial using autologous Tregs in PBC (trial currently ongoing). His doctoral studies were conducted at the University of Birmingham, funded by a Juan Rodes Fellowship from the European Association for the Study of the Liver. The focus of his research was a) the crosstalk between biliary epithelium and T cells and b) immunotolerance with a strong focus on regulatory T cell biology. He described a new cell-in-cell structure and mechanism of damage of biliary epithelium, whereby a population of E-cadherin-expressing CD8+ T cells invades the cytoplasm of biliary epithelial cells. In 2021, he joined the Shimon Sakaguchi Lab at Osaka University (Japan) after being awarded an EMBO fellowship, aiming to develop new strategies to produce antigen-specific induced and stable Treg cells as a therapeutic tool for autoimmune diseases.

In December 2023, Dr. Ronca moved back to Italy to join Humanitas University as Assistant Professor (RTDB) in Internal Medicine and consultant hepatologist. He joined the hepatobiliary immunopathology laboratory directed by Prof. Ana Lleo and the Internal Medicine Unit. His current work is focused on the clinical and pathogenetic aspects of autoimmune liver diseases.