Franco Celada

Born in Milan, Italy in 1931, Franco Celada earned his MD degree at the University of Milan and, after a 2-year stage at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, he obtained his Ph.D. in Immunology at The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. His career in research started in 1969 as Professor of Immunology at The Karolinska Institute. After working in Paris at the Institute Pasteur with a fellowship of the French Government, he became Director of Research at The Italian Research Council (C.N.R.) and Head of the Immunology Section of The Laboratory of Cell Biology in Rome, Italy in 1971. In 1976 he was nominated Professor of Immunology, at the University of Genoa, Italy, where he also became Director of the Transplantation Immunology Service at The Hospital San Martino. From 1982 to 1987, he served as the Coordinator of the Italian Ph.D. Program in Immunological Sciences of The University of Genoa and, in 1987, he became Professor of Pathology of The New York University School of Senior Immunologist of The Department of Rheumatology of The Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City. From that time on Franco Celada divided his time between US and Italy until 2006, when he was nominated Emeritus by the University of Genoa, and moved to a fulltime activity at the NYU Medical School as Research Professor of Medicine and working in the laboratories of the Department of Rheumatology at Hospital for Joint Diseases. An arrangement in act to date.

Prof. Celada is a founder and first President of the Italian Cooperation Society in Immunology in 1971 and is member of EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) since1974 and member of the Editorial Board of EMBO Journal since 1991. He is Member of the American Association of Immunologists since 1989 and Chairman of Education Committee of IUIS (International Union of Immunological Societies) from 1986 to 1994 and of the American Association of Immunologists since 1989.

During the five decades of scientific research across the world, Franco Celada’s research focused on Autoimmunity, Histocompatibility, Immunological Memory and Antibody-Mediated Conformational changes of proteins, which control enzymatic function or, e.g., the membrane penetration site for virus. This and other interdisciplinary approaches have helped reveal the Immune System’s nature of Cognitive System, acting like a second, un-conscious mind of the body. It is through virtual experiments run by the Celada-Seiden IMMSIM, a computer model of the immune system, that predictions are generated: new hypotheses (to be tested and validated) that may improve the defense against mutable invaders. Today, 29 years after its inauguration, IMMSIM is still used. The most recent article was published in July 2019 on Frontiers of Immunology by Filippo Castiglione, Dario Ghersi and Franco Celada.