Luca Scorrano, MD PhD is Professor of Biochemistry at the Department of Biology. He obtained his Medical Degree (1996) and his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Pathology (2000) at the University of Padua with Paolo Bernardi. From 2000 to 2003 he was Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School in Boston (USA), in the lab of the late Stanley J. Korsmeyer, a founding father of the field of apoptosis. 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 Medical School (Switzerland). In 2013 he moved to the University of Padova as Professor of Biochemistry (appointed by chiara fama) and from 2014 to 2020 he served as Scientific Director of the Veneto Institute of Molecular Medicine. Luca Scorrano’s work addresses the central question of form-function relationship at the molecular level in mitochondria. His work changed classical tenets in the fields of apoptosis and mitochondrial pathophysiology. During his postdoc he discovered the cristae remodeling pathway, launching the field of mitochondrial dynamics. His lab elucidated the molecular mechanisms of cristae shape and remodeling and identified the first molecular tether between ER and mitochondria and discovered how a single gene can function in two organelles in trans to tether them (propelling the field of membrane contact sites). Luca’s lab integrates unbiased approaches, biochemistry, and genetics to elucidate how mitochondrial shape influences complex cellular processes, from angiogenesis to heart development and damage, from adipocyte differentiation to cancer. Luca is an EMBO and Academia Europaea Member. He is most proud of the 50 mentored PhD students and postdocs who went on to successful careers in industry and academia.