Luca Scorrano is Full Professor of Biochemistry at the Department of Biology.

He completed his Medical degree (1996) and his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Pathology (2000) at the University of Padova. From 2000 to 2003 he was HFSP (Human Frontier Science Program) postdoctoral fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School in Boston (USA). In 2003 he was awarded an Assistant Scientist position at the Dulbecco-Telethon Institute, in 2006 he was recruited as Full Professor at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). In 2013 he moved to the University of Padova and since 2014 he serves as Scientific Director of the Venetian Institute of Molecular Medicine. His work has changed classical tenets in the field of apoptosis and mitochondrial pathophysiology. He discovered the process of mitochondrial cristae remodeling that allows complete cytochrome c release during apoptosis. Since 2004, his lab discovered a “molecular staple” holding cristae junctions tight and exploited it in vivo to correct mitochondrial diseases and blunt tissue damage; the first molecular bridge between ER and mitochondria; how mitochondrial shape controls the outcome of autophagy; the link between cristae shape and mitochondrial respiration; the essential role of mitochondrial fusion in heart development. He received several prizes and awards (including the 2006 Eppendorf European Young Investigator, the 2011 Chiara D’Onofrio and the 2013 European Society for Clinical Investigation Award) and was elected EMBO Member in 2011. His research is supported by national bodies and private foundations (e.g., Italian Ministry of Education and Research, Telethon, AIRC), by the ERC with the Starting (Consolidator category) grant ERMITO (2012-2017) on the molecular anatomy and pathophysiology of the endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria connection; by a European Commission reintegration grant (2013-2018). He is the European Coordinator of a Leducq Foundation Transatlantic Network of Excellence on Cardiovascular research grant on modulating autophagy to treat cardiovascular disease (2016-2020). He sits on several scientific advisory boards (e.g. Institut Necker Enfants Malades, Paris; FinMit Consortium, Helsinki), on reviewing panels of the ERC, the Flemish Science Foundation (FWO), the Finnish Academy of Sciences, the EMBO. He is an Editorial Board member of EMBOJ, CDD, Cardiovasc Res, BBA-Mol Cell Res, Biol Open.