Giorgio Scita

Giorgio Scita graduated in Biology and specialized in Food Chemistry and Technology at the University of Parma. He pursued his postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In 1995, he joined the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan, and since 2001, he has been a Principal Investigator at IFOM ETS – The AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology. Since 2006, he has served as Professor of General Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Milan. He has been an EMBO member since 2014 and was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant in 2012 and an ERC Synergy Grant in 2022.
 

Research Focus

His research aims to understand how early breast lesions evolve into invasive and metastatic forms, focusing on signaling leading to spatial and temporal regulation of actin dynamics: the powerhouse for cell motility. More recently, he studies how mechanical forces and tissue organization influence the collective behavior of cancer cells, promoting the transition from a solid, confined state to a more fluid and dynamic one.

By analyzing the biomechanical properties and three-dimensional dynamics of tissues, his group seeks to identify early vulnerabilities that can be exploited to prevent tumor progression and to identify biomarkers predictive of therapeutic response.


Scientific productivity

He has authored more than 150 publications, which include more than 120 original articles and 12 invited reviews in refereed journals. Notably, the average impact factor of the 55 publications of the last 10 years is above 10 and, of these, 23 publications (42%) have appeared in journals with an impact factor >10. (e.g., Cell, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Immunity, Developmental Cell).
H factor: Currently, Scita has an overall Hirsch "h" factor of 73 (google Schoolar).