Andrea Alimonti

Prof. Andrea Alimonti is the Director of the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR), where he is also head of the Molecular Oncology Group. He is full professor at Università della Svizzera italiana and ETH Zurich.

Prof. Alimonti received his MD degree from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and his medical and training in oncology from the National Cancer Institute of Rome. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer biology first at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and then at Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 2010 he joined the IOR, as head of the Molecular Oncology Group and in January 2024 he was appointed the new IOR Director. During his career, he has obtained important awards and competitive grants (EMBO Young Investigator, Swiss Bridge Award, ERC Starting, Consolidator and Advanced Grants, J. Steiner Cancer Research Award, Prostate Cancer Foundation Award, Award from the Benioff Initiative for Prostate Cancer Research). He is the author of many clinical and basic research publications in major scientific journals (e.g. Science, Nature, Cell, Nat. Gen etc).

Research areas

The major scientific contributions of Prof. Alimonti's research include the discovery of a therapeutic approach based on the induction of cellular senescence and immune response against the tumor; the identification of an immune cell type, the myeloid-derived suppressor cells, that can promote prostate cancer progression and resistance to standard therapies; the identification of a novel mechanism of therapy resistance in prostate cancer involving the gut microbiota. Prof. Alimonti's vision is to develop state-of-the-art innovative treatments for patients affected by cancer. Some of these treatments are currently being tested in the clinic.