"I met Elia when I arrived in 2007 as an undergraduate student in the cell culture laboratory. I had little knowledge and few skills. The laboratory and the lab experience with bigger and better people frightened me, but having a young post-doc like Elia, always available and encouraging, allowed me to complete my thesis, to graduate and to make a choice.

I never thought to do a PhD. I thought my choice after graduation would be something else.

Then, the work in the laboratory, a serene and pleasant work, even if stimulating and sometimes stressful, made me realize that I could also contribute to put some card in the complex and huge mosaic of life sciences. As soon as I passed the doctorate competition, I still had the honor and the burden of being followed by Elia.

It’s been years of difficulties, with few resources, but with many ideas. The work on the synergy of natural compounds and anticancer drugs seemed insane, but Elia was the first to believe it and therefore I had to commit myself even more. It seemed even more difficult to work on honey and on its wound repair and regeneration properties, but today our laboratory and Elia are leaders in this topic.

At the end of my PhD, Elia helped me to look for the first position as post-doc to continue my interest in wound repair and in vitro models. Elia pushed me to apply for the Lush Prize in 2013, and he accompanied me from the lab to pick up the prize in London.

Then Elia urged me to apply for the Lindau Nobel Prize meeting selection and he put me on the train that took me to Lindau (Germany) in a hot July 2015 to meet, for a week, 65 Nobel Prize winners.

Now that I am doing my first, perhaps shaky independent scientific steps, I hope I have fully grasped the teaching of Elia, that science is not a job, nor a passion, science for a scientist is the very reason of life.

Elia is continuing to inspire others colleagues, especially youngest. He still working hard to change the perception of a typical scientist. I hope to look a little like him too, transmitting human and scientific passion to others."

Nominated by Simona Martinotti, CellPhy Lab-Dept. Scienze e Innovazione Tecnologica (DISIT), University of Piemonte Orientale, Italy