Emilio Hirsch is Professor of Experimental Biology at the Medical School of the University of Torino, Italy since 2005. He authored 301 publications, has an h-index of 90 (google Scholar), is EMBO member, FISHR, Scientific Director of the Molinette Research Foundation and Director of the Molecular Biotechnology Center.

Professor Hirsch is co-founder of Kither Biotech, a preclinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies for rare pulmonary diseases with high unmet medical needs like Cystic Fibrosis and Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. He provided seminal contributions in the characterization of phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3K) as drug targets in cancer and inflammation.

Lately, he focused his studies on the role of class 2 PI3K and found that the gene PIK3C2A is essential for cytokinesis. Children with loss of function mutations show cell refusion leading to cellular senescence and premature aging (Gulluni et al., Science 2021).

Seminar topic: Unexpected roles of phosphoinositdes in aging and cancer