Alberto Malesci

Professor Alberto Malesci is Senior Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy Unit of IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, directed by Professor Silvio Danese.

He is also Extraordinary Professor of Gastroenterology at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University.

After graduating in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Milan in 1975, he specialized in Gastroenterology at the University of Florence in 1979 and in Internal Medicine at the University of Pavia in 1986.

The professor’s scientific and academic training began with a two-year period (1978–79) in the United States at the Bronx VA Medical Centre–Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in the laboratory directed by Dr. Rosalyn Yalow (Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1977). At this institution, as Research Fellow and Clinical Assistant, he conducted research on the pathophysiology of gastrointestinal hormones. From 1980 to 2018, he was first researcher and then professor of Internal Medicine and subsequently of Gastroenterology at the University of Milan.

From a clinical point of view, the professor is mainly expert in colon and pancreatic neoplasms, inflammatory bowel diseases and operative endoscopy.

In the past, Professor Malesci’s research activity was mainly oriented toward the pathophysiology of digestive diseases and the diagnosis of pancreatic diseases. In this field, the most important scientific contribution was the development and clinical validation of the tumor marker CA19-9, still fundamental today in the diagnosis and follow-up of pancreatic cancer. In more recent years, his scientific interest has expanded to the molecular characterization of colorectal cancer and the identification of prognostic and predictive biomarkers for this pathology. Particularly relevant are his contributions on the role of innate immunity (macrophages) and acquired immunity (T lymphocytes) in disease progression and response to chemotherapy.

Professor Malesci is author of more than 200 publications indexed on Medline, with an h-index of 60 on Google Scholar and 50 on Scopus.