Antonino Cattaneo (1954 - 2026)#

It is with profound sadness that the Academy has learned about the passing of Professor Antonino Cattaneo MAE. Read an obituary by Professors Michela Matteoli MAE and Maria Concetta Morrone MAE.

Obituary#

Antonino Cattaneo (6 September 1954 – 2026) was a visionary Italian neuroscientist and biophysicist whose pioneering discoveries in neurotrophins, intracellular antibodies, and neurodegenerative diseases reshaped modern neuroscience and opened new avenues for therapeutic development. Throughout his career, he combined physics, neuroscience, and molecular biology to address fundamental questions of brain function while pursuing innovative strategies to treat neurological disease.

Born in Pisa, Italy, Cattaneo graduated in Physics from Sapienza University of Rome in 1976 under the mentorship of Mario Ageno, a pioneer of biophysics. He then trained in neuroscience at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa under Lamberto Maffei before undertaking postdoctoral research with Nobel Laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini at the CNR Institute of Neurobiology. He later joined the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where he worked with César Milstein and established a long-standing scientific collaboration. From 1991 to 2008 he was Professor of Biophysics at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, serving as Head of the Department of Neurobiology and Deputy Director of the School. In 2008 he returned to the Scuola Normale Superiore as Professor of Physiology and Director of the Bio@SNS Biology Laboratory, a position he held until his retirement in 2024. Since 2018 he had served as President of the European Brain Research Institute (EBRI), founded by Rita Levi-Montalcini.

His early research on visual neuroscience introduced innovative computational approaches to understanding how patterns of neuronal activity encode sensory information. Following the advent of monoclonal antibody technology, he immediately recognized its potential for neuroscience and pioneered its application to the study of nerve growth factor (NGF). His work established the central role of NGF in neuronal development and plasticity and later demonstrated that disruption of NGF homeostasis in the adult brain can trigger progressive neurodegeneration with key features of Alzheimer's disease.

Cattaneo was among the pioneers of intracellular antibody ("intrabody") technology, demonstrating that recombinant antibodies expressed within living cells could selectively modulate protein function and discriminate between specific protein conformations and post-translational modifications. Applying this strategy to tauopathies, he opened entirely new possibilities for targeting the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration. These discoveries laid the foundation for innovative therapeutic approaches to Alzheimer's disease that continue to advance toward clinical development.

In his later years, his research focused on the neural basis of memory, revealing that individual memories are represented by distributed engram networks spanning multiple interconnected brain regions, all required for both memory formation and recall.

Author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, Cattaneo received numerous scientific distinctions, including the Domenico Marotta Prize of the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL, the W. Jansenius Medal of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and the G. Tartufari International Prize for Biology from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He was a member of EMBO, the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL, Academia Europaea, and a Corresponding Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.

Beyond his scientific achievements, Antonino Cattaneo was an inspiring mentor, teacher, and scientific leader. He trained generations of researchers with intellectual generosity, rigor, and an unwavering commitment to curiosity, critical thinking, and scientific independence. Deeply influenced by Rita Levi-Montalcini's conviction that science should ultimately serve patients, he pursued research that bridged fundamental discovery and translational medicine. His legacy lives on through the scientists he mentored, the ideas he inspired, and the therapeutic strategies that continue to shape the future of neuroscience and offer hope for patients with neurodegenerative disease.