Dario DiFrancesco - Curriculum vitae#

Long CV

Born: February 10, 1948 in Milano, Italy
Citizenship: Italian
Marital status: married; spouse: Marina Morini
Sons: Jacopo Cosimo, born 11/11/1978; twins Mattia Lorenzo and Niccolò Ettore, born 20/9/1982
Work address: Dept. of Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology, Lab. of Molecular Physiology and Neurobiology, The Pacelab, University of Milano, via Celoria 26, 20133 Milano, Italy Telephone: office: +39-02-5031-4931; fax: +39-02-5031-4932


Education

• Univ. Studi, Milano: Ph.D. (equiv.), 1973 (Physiol./Biophysics)
• The Physiological Lab., Cambridge, UK: Postdoc (Cardiac Electrophysiology)
• Univ. Lab. Physiology, Oxford, UK: Postdoc (Cardiac Electrophysiology)

Research positions and Academic appointments

• 9/73- 12/74: Teaching and research fellowship, Institute of General Physiology, Univ. Milano.
• 1/74- 12/80: Research Assistant, as above
• 9/76- 3/77: Postdoctoral fellow in Cambridge, The Physiological Laboratory (R.D. Keynes)
• 4/77- 12/78: Postdoc in Cardiac Electrophysiology in Oxford, The Lab. of Physiology (D. Noble).
• 1/81- 5/86: Associate Professor, Dept. of General Physiology and Biochemistry, Univ. Milano.
• 6/86-present: Full Professor, Dept. of General Physiology and Biochemistry, then Dept. of Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology, Univ. Milano
• 10/99-present: external lecturer of Physiology at Vita-Salute Univ., San Raffaele Hospital (HSR), Milano

Primary areas of research interest

• Electrophysiology of cardiac tissue and cells
• Ionic currents and rhythmic activity in heart
• The pacemaker “funny” channel and control of heart rate
• HCN channelopathies
• Embryonic and adult cardiac stem cells

Honors and awards

• Recipient Accademia dei Lincei- Royal Society award 9/1976- 8/1977 (Cambridge- Oxford)
• Recipient Wellcome Trust award Research Grants 9/1977- 7/1979 (Oxford)
• Recipient Wallace O. Fenn Memorial Fund award for XXVIII IUPS Congress 1980 (Budapest)
• Recipient Wallace O. Fenn Memorial Fund award for XXIX IUPS Congress 1983 (Sidney)
• Member of the "Academia Europaea" since 1992
• International Prize of Physiology "Professeur Pierre Rijlant" Academic Foundation, awarded by the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, 1994
• Lectio Magistralis Annual Congress Italian Soc. of Physiology, 1994
• League of European Research Universities mention for L.E.R.U. Research Breakthroughs 2006 as representative of best research in the University of Milano
• Lauréat Grand Prix scientifique pour l'année 2008, Fondation Lefoulon-Delalande- Institut de France, pour les "très remarquables travaux de recherce qui ont conduit à la découvert des canaux ioniques impliqué dans la régulation du rythme cardiaque".
• Lectio Magistralis Faculty of Science Univ. Milan 2008
• Lectio Magistralis and Prize “Control of cardiac rate by “funny” channels in health and disease” Symp. “Translation in Cardiomyopathies: from genes to therapy” Padova 2009
• H.C. Burger Award Lecture “The history of the discovery of funny channels” 23rd Cong. Europ. Soc. Noninvasive Preventive Cardiol. “Cardiovascuar Medicine in the Era of Advanced Technology”, Brescia 2009
• Consulted annually by the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Committee since 1997