Antonella Viola is Full Professor of General Pathology at the Department of Biomedical Sciences.

She obtained her Master degree in Biology (1991) and her PhD in Evolutionary Biology (1995) at the University of Padova. She worked as researcher at the Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland (1995-1999) and as EMBO fellow at EMBL Monterotondo (1999-2000). She was then Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Padova (2002-2007) and at the University of Milan (2007-2014), and back to Padova in 2014 as Associate Professor, and in 2015 as Full Professor. She is an EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) member. Her research interests include T cell and macrophage activation, tumor immunology and mesenchymal stem cells. She received funding from several national and international institutions (e.g., Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and Research, E-rare, US Department of Defence) and foundations (e.g., Telethon, AIRC). In 2012 she won an ERC Advanced grant for the project STePS (2013- 2018), which analyses the molecular interactions leading to the orchestration of phagocytic synapses for phagocytosis and activation, two events crucial for immune responses to pathogens as well as for inflammation. She also collaborates as partner in the EU project MERLIN that looks at developing stem cell-based therapies for liver disease.