Ignazio Marino - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ignazio Marino

Encyclopedia

Ignazio Marino is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, 10 March 1955) is an Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

surgeon, specialising in liver transplantation

Liver transplantation

Liver transplantation or hepatic transplantation is the replacement of a diseased liver with a healthy liver allograft. The most commonly used technique is orthotopic transplantation, in which the native liver is removed and replaced by the donor organ in the same anatomic location as the original...

, and politician in the Democratic Party

Democratic Party (Italy)

The Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in Italy, that is the second-largest in the country. The party is led by Pier Luigi Bersani, who was elected in the 2009 leadership election....

. He is a member of the Italian Senate

Italian Senate

The Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...

, being first elected in 2006.

Early life

Marino was born in Genoa to a Sicilian father and is the eldest of three children (he has two sisters). He graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore is a privately-owned Catholic university founded in 1921 by Agostino Gemelli. Its main campus is located in Milan, Italy with satellite campuses in Brescia, Piacenza, Cremona, Rome, and Campobasso...

in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. He then trained at the Transplant Center of the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

and the University of Pittsburgh's

University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

Starzl Transplantation Institute.

Medical career

In 1992 he has been appointed Associate Director of the National Liver Transplant Center of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Pittsburgh, the only organ transplant department of the Government of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. In 1997 he founded Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

's ISMETT

ISMETT

ISMETT, in Italian, Istituto Mediterraneo per i Trapianti e Terapie ad Alta Specializzazione translated as the Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and High Specialization Therapies, is a center for organ transplantation located in Palermo, Italy...

(Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and Advanced Specialized Therapies), the first liver transplant centre in Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

– thanks to a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is an $9 billion integrated global nonprofit health enterprise that has 54,000 employees, 20 hospitals, 4,200 licensed beds, 400 outpatient sites and doctors’ offices, a 1.5 million-member health insurance division, as well as commercial and...

and the Italian Government – of which he has been Director and CEO. In 2001 he performed the first transplant ever carried out in Italy on an HIV-positive patient undergoing HAART therapy. In 2002 he left his position as Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is a medical school located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The School of Medicine is also known as Pitt Med, and is ranked as a “top medical school” by U.S. News & World Report in the publication's categories of research and primary care...

and became Professor of Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University

Thomas Jefferson University

Thomas Jefferson University is a private health sciences university in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. The university consists of six constituent colleges and schools, Jefferson Medical College, Jefferson College of Graduate Studies, Jefferson School of Health...

in Philadelphia.

Dr. Marino has personally performed over 650 transplants. He has authored 635 scientific publications and 3 scientific books. In 2005 he published a book with Einaudi

Einaudi

Einaudi may refer to;*Giulio Einaudi , an Italian publisher**Giulio Einaudi editore, now an imprint of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore*Luigi Einaudi , an Italian politician*His son Mario Einaudi , an Italian political scientist...

("Le Vele" series) entitled "Credere e curare" (Treating and Believing); the book deals with the medical profession and the influence that faith, seen as a religious creed but also as compassion, solidarity and empathy towards all human beings, has upon it. In 2005 he founded Imagine ONLUS, an international non-profit organisation engaged in international solidarity activities with special regard to health issues. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Transplantation

Organ transplant

Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...

, Liver Transplantation

Liver transplantation

, Clinical Transplantation and 9 other international scientific journals.

The first baboon-to-human liver transplant in medical history

Ignazio Marino was a member of the surgical team which on 28 June 1992 and 10 January 1993 performed the only two baboon

Baboon

Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...

-to-human liver xenotransplants in medical history. The first attempts at xenotransplants were made in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

in 1906, with a goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

, a pig

Pig

A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...

and a macaque

Macaque

The macaques constitute a genus of Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. - Description :Aside from humans , the macaques are the most widespread primate genus, ranging from Japan to Afghanistan and, in the case of the barbary macaque, to North Africa...

as kidney

Kidney

The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...

donors. All transplants failed following the almost immediate insurgence of vascular thrombosis

Thrombosis

Thrombosis is the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel, obstructing the flow of blood through the circulatory system. When a blood vessel is injured, the body uses platelets and fibrin to form a blood clot to prevent blood loss...

. Three more attempts were made - one in Europe and two in the United States – over the following 58 years. The first successful transplant

Organ transplant

dates back to 1964, when Keith Reemtsma of Tulane University

Tulane University

Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...

transplanted a chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...

’s kidney, which functioned for nine months. In 1984 international media reported the dramatic case of Baby Fae

Baby Fae

Stephanie Fae Beauclair , better known as Baby Fae, was an American infant born in 1984 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She became the first infant subject of a xenotransplant procedure, receiving the heart of a baboon. The procedure, performed by Leonard L...

, a 2.2 kg newborn infant who received a baboon heart in the Loma Linda University

Loma Linda University

Loma Linda University is a Seventh-day Adventist coeducational health sciences university located in Loma Linda, California, United States. The University comprises eight schools and the Faculty of Graduate Studies...

Medical Center and survived twenty days. No more xenotransplants were performed for nearly ten years, until the first two baboon liver transplants performed in 1992 and 1993 at the University of Pittsburgh. The clinical trial was coordinated by Prof. Thomas Starzl

Thomas Starzl

Thomas E. Starzl is an American physician, researcher, and is an expert on organ transplants. He performed the first human liver transplants, and has often been referred to as "the father of modern transplantation."-Life:...

, the pioneer surgeon who performed the first liver transplant in humans in 1963, with whom Ignazio Marino worked for over fifteen years and who taught him liver transplant techniques.
The transplant with baboon liver was envisaged in those years for the treatment of terminal cirrhosis from chronic hepatitis B virus. Baboons were chosen as donors because – in spite of their different size – they share many of the physiological and genetic characteristics of human beings but are resistant to chronic hepatitis B virus. The first recipient was an HIV-positive 35-year-old man, the second a 62-year-old man. Both had terminal liver failure from hepatitis B. The first patient lived 70 days after the transplant

Organ transplant

. He spent most of the post-surgery time on a regular hospital ward and maintained nearly normal liver functions. The second, much older patient never regained consciousness; he remained icteric and lived for 26 days. There are still a number of problems to be solved before xenotransplantation

Xenotransplantation

Xenotransplantation , is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another. Such cells, tissues or organs are called xenografts or xenotransplants...

can become a reality. The main problem is rejection; others include the need to make sure that xenotransplanted organs function properly in the recipient, and the need to minimize the risk of introducing new infective agents in the human population. Furthermore, there are inevitable problems of an ethical and anthropological nature, from the acceptability of human intervention in terms of species manipulation, to the ethical feasibility of using animals to improve human survival capability and wellbeing. Ethical issues also include the concerns and objections raised by animal protection movements. The two above-mentioned transplants did at the time provoke heated controversies in this regard.

The first kidney transplant on an HIV-positive patient in Italy

In 2001 Ignazio Marino received a request for a kidney transplant from an HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

-positive patient. The young man had addressed most Italian transplant centres but his request had consistently been rejected. Ignazio Marino accepted to examine him, subjected him to all appropriate tests and then judged him fit for a kidney transplant. The man’s father would be the organ donor. News about the transplant aroused doubts and disputes in Italy’s academic and institutional world. In particular, the then Minister of Health, Girolamo Sirchia, declared that that type of operation would have “catastrophic results”. A few months later, Italy’s National Transplant Centre (CNT) reprimanded Ignazio Marino and warned him not to perform any further transplants on HIV-positive patients. To this day, the above patient is alive and in good health condition.
After that first transplant on an HIV-positive patient, an ad hoc Committee was established at the CNT to determine whether that type of transplant should be carried out, and nearly three years later a final approval was issued. Today transplants are regularly and successfully performed on HIV-positive patients in Italy, too. The controversy which had emerged at the time was probably less the result of scientific evidence than of a general prejudice towards HIV-positive people. That first transplant performed in 2001 made it possible to open the way to a type of surgery which had been regularly performed in other countries for several years.

Enter into politics

A good friend of Massimo D'Alema

Massimo D'Alema

Massimo D'Alema is an Italian politician. He is also a journalist and a former national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left...

, Marino was persuaded by him to enter into politics as an independent candidate with the Democrats of the Left

Democrats of the Left

The Democrats of the Left was a social-democratic Italian political party and part of the Olive Tree electoral coalition, which merged with a number of centrist and leftist groups to form the Democratic Party on 14 October 2007...

in the 2006 general elections

Italian general election, 2006

In the Italian general election, 2006 for the renewal of the two Chambers of the Parliament of Italy held on April 9 and April 10, 2006 the incumbent prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the center-right House of Freedoms, was narrowly defeated by Romano Prodi, leader of the center-left The...

, being consequently elected as a Senator; he has been the Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Health since 6 June 2006.

Following the fall of Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...

's government and an early election held in 2008

Italian general election, 2008

A snap general election was held in Italy on 13 April and 14 April 2008. The election came after President Giorgio Napolitano dissolved parliament on 6 February 2008 following the defeat of the government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi in a January 2008 Senate vote, and the unsuccessful tentative...

, he was confirmed in the Senate, where he was appointed whip of the Democratic Party in the Standing Committee on Health and Chair of the Investigative Committee on the National Health Care System. In his second tenure as a Senator, Marino gained public exposure due to his strong support for right to die and a clear advance health care directive law during the dramatic final days of Eluana Englaro

Eluana Englaro

Eluana Englaro was an Italian woman from Lecco, who entered a persistent vegetative state on January 18, 1992, following a car accident, and subsequently became the focus of a court battle between supporters and opponents of euthanasia...

, which caused widespread debate and a constitutional crisis within Italy. Following such events, Marino has become recognizable in Italian politics as a strong advocate of a lay country, gaining vocal support from left-wing parties and the Italian Radicals

Italian Radicals

Italian Radicals is an Italian political party which describes itself as a liberale, liberista e libertario political movement .It was...

, but also being criticized by socially conservative politicians also within the Democratic Party, such as Paola Binetti

Paola Binetti

Paola Binetti is an Italian Deputy who belonged to the Democratic Party before 2010. Now she belongs the Union of the Centre.-Biography:Binetti was born in Rome...

.

In June 2009 he publicly announced his intention to run as a candidate for the Democratic Party leadership election to be held next October. His leadership election platform is mostly focused on social rights, public health and environmentalism.

Early life

Medical career

The first baboon-to-human liver transplant in medical history

The first kidney transplant on an HIV-positive patient in Italy

Enter into politics

See also