Giordano
Researcher & Philanthropist
Real Research, Real Results.
Together We Can Cure Cancer.
ABOUT
Dr. Antonio Giordano
is the President and Founder of the Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO), which conducts research to diagnose, treat and cure cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses.
Born in Naples, Italy October 11, 1962, Dr. Antonio Giordano is a Professor of Molecular Biology at Temple University in Philadelphia and a 'Chiara fama' Professor in the Department of Pathology & Oncology at the University of Siena, in Siena, Italy. Dr. Antonio Giordano is also the Director of the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine and the Center for Biotechnology at Temple's College of Science & Technology.
"Think of genetic research as language. We have identified the words; now we are constructing the dictionary and learning the rules of grammar. Our task is to continue assembling the dictionary and perhaps the construction of a few grammatically accurate sentences. The goal is to eventually add new chapters to the novel of life"
- Dr. Antonio Giordano
In his research throughout the years, Dr. Antonio Giordano identified a tumor suppressor gene, Rb2/p130, that has been found to be active in the lung, endometrial, brain, breast, liver, and ovarian cancers. Dr. Antonio Giordano also found that if doses of gamma radiation are combined with this gene, it accelerates the death of tumor cells. Dr. Antonio Giordano went on to discover Cyclin A, Cdk9, and Cdk10. Cdk9 is known to play critical roles in HIV transcriptions, the inception of tumors, and cell differentiation. They also play a part in muscle differentiation and have been linked to various genetic muscular disorders. Dr. Antonio Giordano has also developed patented technologies for diagnosing cancer.
Dr. Antonio Giordano has published over 600 papers on gene therapy, cell cycle, genetics of cancer, and epidemiology. In 2011, Dr. Antonio Giordano and his team uncovered anti-tumor agents that might be effective in the treatment of mesothelioma, cancer caused by prolonged asbestos exposure. Dr. Antonio Giordano and his team discovered they could induce cell death without harming healthy cells.
Innovative research led by Dr. Antonio Giordano at the Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO), Temple College of Science and Technology’s Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine revealed that interventions using virtual reality (VR) during chemotherapy have significant potential to improve the quality of life—and possibly survival chances, by increasing adherence to therapy—in breast cancer patients. The study found that women undergoing chemotherapy who received a VR intervention during treatment had improvements in anxiety levels and mood when compared with women who did not receive the VR intervention.
In recent years, Dr. Antonio Giordano has also focused efforts on studying the relationship between cancer and environmental pollution in the Italian region of Campania. He was among the first to report an increased incidence of various types of cancer in populations near illegal toxic waste sites and published numerous findings including the link between cancer and multiple types of toxins attributed to the landfill wastes, such as reporting high levels of the cancer-causing dioxins in surrounding wildlife and high levels of heavy metals in cancer patients from the region.
Dr. Antonio Giordano’s work on the environmental disaster in this region was highlighted through two books on the subject, respectively "Campania, terra di veleni" (translated Campania; Land of Fires) and "Monnezza di stato", edited by Denaro Libri and one of these books was eventually produced as a movie. The publications also launched a petition to protect the environment, signed by over 500 researchers and people from various professional sectors.
SBARRO HEALTH RESEARCH INSTITUTE (SHRO)
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The Sbarro Health Research Organization is a nonprofit charity committed to funding excellence in basic genetic research to cure and diagnose cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses and to foster the training of young doctors in a spirit of professionalism and humanism.
SHRO researchers have completed research on new technologies designed to diagnose lung, ovarian, endometrial, breast, and brain tumors as well as lymphomas. Their work with gene therapy has also led to new strategies to treat tumors of the lung and brain and has led to over twenty patents.
SHRO is dedicated to supporting scientific research aimed at finding cures for cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases by identifying their underlying molecular mechanisms. SHRO includes the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine located at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, and an SHRO-affiliated laboratory located at the University of Siena in Siena, Italy. Over 200 SHRO molecular biologists, geneticists, physicists, and chemists work to develop new methods to understand, diagnose and cure disease.
In 1993, Antonio Giordano, M.D., Ph.D., founded the Sbarro Institute with a generous donation from Mario Sbarro, the Founder of the Sbarro restaurant chain, following Dr. Antonio Giordano’s discovery of the tumor suppressor gene pRb2. Initially named the Sbarro Institute, the research center was located at Thomas Jefferson University, where Dr. Antonio Giordano was a professor.
When Dr. Antonio Giordano moved to Temple University in 2002, he and twenty fellow scientists forged a new, three-year alliance with Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Under the new arrangement, the original Sbarro Institute was renamed the Sbarro Health Research Organization, Inc. (SHRO), which includes the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine at Temple and the SHRO-affiliated laboratory at the University of Siena in Siena, Italy.
Under a 2005 agreement, the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine received continued funding from Temple and expanded its program to include work on the relationship between obesity and cancer, and instituted a new program on molecular therapeutics to explore how molecular genetic research can be applied to patient therapies and diagnostics. SHRO relies on grants and private donations to fund important biomedical research.
FEATURED IN
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