Professor Giorgio Stassi MD started his research activity in 1989 as researcher with the Laboratory of Immunological medicine at the Institute of Clinical Medicine of the University of Palermo. In 1997 he started work at the Rangos Research Center (PA) USA, under the supervision of Prof. Trucco and working on the pathogenesis of Diabetes Mellitus. He returns to Italy in 2000 and thanks to a AIRC financing, was able to create a Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology at the Department of experimental Medicine at the University of Palermo.
In 2002 he takes position as Head of the Cellular and Molecular Pathophysiology Laboratory at the Department of Surgical and Oncological Sciences of the University of Palermo. In the last years his scientific interest has been focused on the study of the role that cancer stem cells have in the onset and the progression in different tumors of epithelial origin such as colon, breast and thyroid tumors.
Recently, Stassi and his collaborators published a series of articles on top journals such as Cell Stem Cell and Nature in which he clarified one of the main mechanisms in regard to the resistance to chemotherapy of the cancer stem cells of the colon and proposing a new strategy for the cure of these tumors.
 

Dr. Stassi's Research Interests include: Autoimmune diseases, Tumor Biology, Colorectal and Thyroid cancer, Cancer Stem Cells