I was born in Cagliari in 1972. I graduated summa cum laude at the University of Cagliari School of Medicine in 1998 and then I completed the residency and fellowship in endocrinology and metabolic diseases at the same university. I got the board certification and specialty summa cum laude in endocrinology and metabolic diseases in December 2003. During my training period I had the opportunity to work at the Center for the study of Thyroid diseases of the University of Cagliari and at the Diabetes Unit at the San Michele hospital in Cagliari and in other institution for specific projects:

• 1995- 2004: clinical fellow at the Diabetes Unit – Azienda Ospedaliera Brotzu – St.MicheleHospital – Cagliari (Italy)
• 1998-2003: resident fellow in Endocrinology and Metabolic diseases - University of Cagliari Medical School – Italy

• 1998 Research fellow for TRIGR Project at the Diabetes Unit – Azienda Ospedaliera Brotzu – St. Michele Hospital – Cagliari (Italy)
• 1999 Visiting fellow at the department of diabetes and metabolism – University of Bristol – UK

I am also member of several professional and scientific associations:

• 2000-present: EASD European Association for the Study of Diabetes
• 2000-present: SID – Italian Diabetes society
• 2003-present: ISPAD – International Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Diabetes

and I recived some travel grants and honors

• EASD travel grant for 36th annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. Jerusalem (Israel) September 17th-21st, 2000
• EASD travel grant for EASD Scientists Training Course 2002 – Barbara Davis Centre for Childhood Diabetes – October 7th-11th, 2002
• EASD and JDRFI Scientists Training Course 2002 – Barbara Davis Centre for Childhood Diabetes – October 7th-11th, 2002 organised by Dr. John Hutton. The course focus on tecniques to study the immunology of type 1 diabetes in man and experimental models and approaches to treat the disease through transplantation or recapitulation of islet development.
• ThirdScienceSchool in Research Methodology conducted by the International Society of Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes – Toronto (Canada) November 17th-22nd, 2002
• Eight Cambridge Seminar on the Epidemiology and Public Health Aspects of Diabetes Mellitus sponsored by WHO, CDC, IDF, Unilever. ClareCollege, Cambridge (UK) – April 6th-11th, 2003

Ever since I was an undergraduate in medical school, my activities and interests have been dedicated to Type 1 Diabetes. I began my research in Type 1 Diabetes 10 years ago while a medical student under the supervision of Dr. Marco Songini. At that time, I was learning clinical care of adolescent T1DM patients. Also, I was involved in multicenter research projects concerning epidemiology, prediction and prevention of Type 1 Diabetes, such as the Eumedis Study (Health Systems & Policies for Prevention and Treatment of diabetes in the Meditrerranean), Eurodiab Prospective Complication Trial; Diabetes Mondiale (DiaMond) Project; Sardinian Register for Type 1 Diabetes (Cordinating Group); TRIGR project, family studies of Sardinian diabetic patients, Diabfin project, and The Sardinia Schoolchildren Study. The latter project was an investigation of predictive capacity of combined strategies in the general population of Sardinia.

As a study doctor for these trials, I experienced the difficulty and the frustration of explaining the concept of risk for Type 1 Diabetes, particularly when babies or young children were found to be at high risk of developing the disease. At the same time, progress in predictive strategies was rapidly achieved and better predictive power of the current combinatorial strategy was confirmed in large studies. I then realized that part of the difficulties might be overcome if we will be able to predict more accurately who is at risk and also how fast those at risk develop the clinical disease. The accurate identification of people at risk will be the basis to apply any approach directed at preventing and possibly treating the disease.

Being moved by these motivations, I decided to direct my activities to basic science, specifically, the study of immunological aspects of Type 1 diabetes with relation to autoimmunity, prediction, possible prevention and/or monitoring of any effects of preventive therapies on the patients. My medical degree and my past clinical experience will prevent me from forgetting that patients are the object of basic science. In fact, I believe that in medical research, the tremendous amount of effort devoted to basic science should set the stage for the development of clinical investigation. The knowledge of basic science helps any physician to understand and to correctly apply the new discoveries. At the same time, a good knowledge of the medical aspects of the disease inevitably drives research towards clinical applications. With this purpose in mind, with little laboratory experience, and with all of my hopes, I had the unique opportunity to join in March 2004 the Department of immunogenetics directed by Dr. Massimo Trucco at the University of Pittsburgh. It is a very stimulating and friendly environment, where I am able to expand and improve my knowledge and my skills. There I started working in Dr. Massimo Pietropaolo’s laboratory on 2 projects aimed at improving the predicting capacity towards Type 1 Diabetes by studing new autoantigens and autoantigenic epitopes.

As a result of my research activities I gave some poster and oral presentations during national and international meetings, and I published on peer reviewed journals.