Prof. Alberto Mantovani awarded the international prize Lombardia è Ricerca 2024

The Lombardia é Ricerca international prize will go to immunologist Alberto Mantovani – Scientific Director of IRCCS Istituto Clinico Humanitas, President of Humanitas Foundation for Research and Professor Emeritus of Humanitas University, pioneer and leading figure in the research on the link between inflammation, cells of the immune system and cancer. He will receive the ‘Lombardy Nobel Prize’ that the Lombardy Region awards to discoveries of great impact in the field of Life Sciences. In previous years, the Prize has been awarded to scientists such as Steven A. Rosenberg and Carl H. June, for gene therapy, to Rosalind Picard, for her research into Artificial Intelligence, and to Pierre Joliot, Marcella Bonchio and Markus Antonietti, for their contribution to environmental sustainability, among others.

The prize will be officially awarded on 8th November at La Scala Theatre in Milan during the Giornata della Ricerca which is dedicated to the memory of Umberto Veronesi and which this year focuses on ‘Life Sciences’. Each year, a jury of 15 top scientists with the highest H-index in the research areas related to the prize theme decides the winner of the ‘Lombardia è Ricerca’ international prize.

‘The dominant paradigm in the study of tumorigenesis,’ reads the official motivation for the 2024 Prize, ’was, and has long remained, the genetic one. Consequently, for a long time there was little recognition of the ecological component of cancer and the role of its microenvironment. A sustained effort was needed to root the idea in solid biological and molecular foundations. In doing this, Mantovani proved to be a pioneer‘.

The jury’s motivation continues: ‘In the 1980s and 1990s, Mantovani’s laboratory made fundamental discoveries about the role of tumour-associated macrophages and inflammatory cytokines in cancer initiation and progression. The turning point in the history of the concept of ‘inflammation and cancer’ was an extremely effective and influential review written in 2001 by Mantovani with the British scientist Fran Balkwill, kick-starting a wave of activity throughout the scientific world, in which he himself played a decisive role from an experimental point of view. The outcome,’ continues the motivation, “was the shared acceptance of the idea that inflammation is a determining factor in the development of tumours: a concept with enormous implications, especially from a therapeutic point of view.”

Thanks to the understanding that cancer is not just ‘tumour cells’ but also the ecological niche that surrounds them, including, above all, the immune system, researchers have been able to develop new therapeutic approaches, such as modern cancer immunotherapies, which are revolutionizing our ability to treat tumours.