Gianpiero Sironi

Gianpiero Sironi graduated as M.D. at the University of Milan in 1962, where he then started his research work.  He has been research assistant at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden (1965-1966) and at the University of California at Berkeley (1969). Since 1975 he has been full professor of Genetics at the University of Milano, where he has been Chairman of the Department of Genetics and Microbiology (1986-1990), Dean of the School of Biology (1990-1998), Chairman of the Ph.D. School in Genetics (1992-2001), Dean of the Faculty of Science (1998-2004) and Vice-Rector for Research (2004 ”“ 2009). He has been Chairman of the Conference of the Deans of the Schools of Biology of Italian Universities in 1990-1991 and President of the Italian Genetics Association (AGI) in 1990-1991.   His scientific interests, after an initial work on the induction of mutations in Drosophila, has dealt with various aspects of molecular genetics of bacteria, their plasmids, and bacterial viruses. Significant work has  concerned the occurrence of  prophage interference in lysogenic bacteria, the  requirement of bacterial functions for phage multiplication and the physiology of a bacteriophage-plasmid  element.   He is a member of Istituto Lombardo, Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He retired form his University position in 2009, but is still interested in University life and its research activities.