Vittorio Sgaramella

Born in Milano on 19.03.37, he holds a degree in Chemistry from the University of Pavia ’61. In 1987 he has been appointed full professor of Molecular biology at the University of Calabria, Faculty of Sciences, Dept. Cell Biology, up to his retirement in Oct. 2003. From 1999 through 2002 he has been on leave at the Centro Linceo Interdisciplinare of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome. In the period 1980-1987 he has been associate professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Pavia. From 1972 to 1980 he has been researcher at the CNR in Pavia. Previously between 1968 and 1992 he has been research associate and visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin and at MIT (with Nobelist Dr. H. G. Khorana), at Stanford University and at Rockefeller University (with Nobelist Dr. J. Lederberg). His contributions to science are: one of the first isolations of a gene, as a hybrid between DNA and ribosomal RNA in B. subtilis, in Pavia (1967); the first synthesis of gene, with H. G. Khorana (1969); the discovery of the blunt-end ligation (1970); the discovery of the  joinability of DNA restriction termini (1972), in the US; back in Italy, the production of yeast artificial chromosomes, YAC, with single inserts (Pavia, 1980); the discovery of the ligase improved-multiple displacement DNA amplification (Lodi, 2003). He has authored/coauthored over 250 scientific papers and popularization articles.

At present he is responsible of the Section of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Centro Ricerche e Studi Agroalimentari (CERSA) at the Parco Tecnologico Padano (PTP), Lodi, which he helped founding.