Tullio Pozzan
Tullio Pozzan is a professor at the University of Padua and head of the department of biomedical sciences of the Italian National Research Council. Education. Pozzan studied Medicine at the University of Padua and from 1978 to 1981. Career and research. Pozzan was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge. He became a full professor in 1986 and served as department chairman at the University of Padua for 12 years. His main scientific interest has been the study of Calcium in biology and its role in second messenger systems. His interests in calcium signaling (Ca) began with  the characterization of Ca uptake and release in mitochondria. In collaboration with Roger Y. Tsien, he participated to the development of the intracellular trappable fluorescent Ca indicators. His research group developed the first genetically encoded probes with selective subcellular localization. This new approach lead to a series of discoveries on the mechanisms of calcium metabolism and in particular it revolutionized the understanding of mitochondrial role in cellular Ca homeostasis. He is also interested in the signaling pathway controlled by cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). His group generated the first genetically encoded fluorescent cAMP probe, contributed to establishing the concept of cAMP  microdomains and described the existence of an autonomous cAMP homeostatic mechanism within the matrix of mitochondria. Awards and honours. Pozzan is member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), of the Accademia dei Lincei, the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2018.