Carlo V. Catapano

Date of birth: February 1, 1959 Nationality: Italy Work address: Institute of Oncology Research (IOR), Via Chiesa 5, 6500 Bellinzona, CH Email: carlo.catapano@ior.usi.ch Carlo V. Catapano, M.D., Ph.D. is the Director of the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR), Head of Tumor Biology and Experimental Therapeutics Program, and Group Leader of Experimental Therapeutics at the IOR in Bellinzona, Switzerland. Dr. Catapano graduated in Medicine at the University of Naples (Naples, IT) in 1983. He completed the residency in Medical Oncology at the University of Naples (Naples, IT) in 1986, and from 1985 to 1988 he was at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research (Milan, IT) as post-graduate fellow in cancer pharmacology. From 1988, he was a research fellow in the Department of Biochemistry of the Wake Forest University (WFU) and at the WFU Comprehensive Cancer Center in Winston-Salem, NC, USA. He received the PhD in Biochemistry from WFU in 1993 working on DNA replication mechanisms and their relevance for anticancer drug action. From 1993 to 2003, he was Professor in Departments of Experimental Oncology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Medicine (Oncology/Hematology) at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC, USA. He also had joint appointments as senior member of the Hollings Cancer Center, Center for Molecular and Structural Biology, and Laboratory of Cancer Genomics of the MUSC. From 2003, he is the Director of the Laboratory of Experimental Oncology and then Director of the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR) in Bellinzona, Switzerland. From 2003, he has also been Leader of the Experimental Therapeutics Group and Head of the Tumor Biology and Experimental Therapeutics Program at IOR. Major areas of expertise in his research team comprise cancer biology, molecular pharmacology, RNA biology, RNA therapeutics, preclinical investigation and early clinical studies of anticancer drugs. The primary focus in his research group is currently the mechanisms of deregulation of transcriptional and epigenetic processes in human cancers and the development of innovative therapeutic strategies. The current efforts aim at understanding the role of intra-tumor heterogeneity and tumor cell plasticity and the specific aspects related to cancer stem cell biology, tumor progression and treatment resistance.