Edoardo Boncinelli is currently the Director of the SISSA-ISAS Higher International School of Advanced Studies of Trieste. He was previously the Head of the Molecular Biology of Development Lab in the Department of Biological and Technological Research (DIBIT) at San Raffaele Hospital

(Milan) and a Lecturer in General Biology and Genetics at the Vita-Salute University of Milan.

Although a physicist by training, he dedicated himself to the study of animal (and human) genetics and molecular biology, which he pursued initially at the International Institute of Genetics and Biophysics (IIGB) in Naples, and later in Milan. He was President of the Italian Biophysics and Molecular Biology Society and is currently a member of the Academia Europaea and EMBO – European Molecular Biology Organisation.

He is also a member of AGI (Italian Genetics Association), SIBBM (Italian Biophysics and Molecular Biology Society) and ABCD (Cell Biology and Differentiation Association), having previously occupied the role of councillor in all three.

He was part of the Steering Committee of the Programme for Developmental Biology (European Science Foundation), of EMBO’s Course Committee and Council, and of numerous ad hoc committees created by the European Union (EU), Human Frontiers Scientific Program (HFSP) and NATO. He was also a member of the Commission on the Use of Stem Cells introduced by the Health Ministry in 2000.