Speaker

Vincenzo Di Marzo

Full Professor
Université Laval

Dr. Vincenzo Di Marzo is Canada Excellence Research Chair on the Microbiome-Endocannabinoidome Axis in Metabolic Health (CERC-MEND) at Laval University, Quebec, Canada (https://cerc-mend.chaire.ulaval.ca/en/home/), and Associate Research Director at the Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry of the National Research Council (ICB-CNR) in Pozzuoli, Italy (https://www4.na.icb.cnr.it/en/researchers-and-technologists/). He is also the coordinator of the Endocannabinoid Research Group (www.icb.cnr.it/erg) in the Naples region, and the director of the Joint International Research Unit between the Italian National Research Council and Université Laval, for Chemical and Biomolecular Research on the Microbiome and its impact on Metabolic Health and Nutrition (MicroMeNu, www.umilaval.cnr.it). He holds a ChemD from the University of Naples in 1983, and a PhD in Biochemistry from Imperial College in London in 1988. He is co-author of more than 820 articles published in peer-reviewed journals (H index 141 according to Scopus). In 2014-2022 he has been listed for 9 consecutive years among the Highly Cited Researchers (top 1% in the world) in all scientific disciplines (www.highlycited.com; https://hcr.clarivate.com/). He has been the recipient of numerous research grants and awards, including: a Human Frontier Science Program research grant to study the biosynthesis, metabolism, and structure-activity relationships of anandamide; a Merkator Fellowship for Foreign Scientists by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinshaft; the Mechoulam Award for “his outstanding contributions to cannabinoid research”; the Luigi Tartufari award for Chemistry from the Italian Academy of Sciences (Accademia dei Lincei); the “Ester Fride Award for Basic Science” from the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines. In October 2014 he was awarded the International Award “Guido Dorso” for Research, and in May 2016 the Medal of the Italian Accademia delle Scienze, or of the XL, for Physical and Natural Sciences. In In November 2018 he was elected member of the Italian “Accademia dei Lincei”, the oldest academy of the sciences in the world. Ranked 492 in a new citation index covering nearly 7 million researchers worldwide and 100,000 highly cited authors (Ioannidis JPA, Baas J, Klavans R, Boyack KW (2019) A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field. PLoS Biol 17(8): e3000384. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000384). Ranked 528 in the latest Mendeley “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators” special classification including 159683 highly cited authors (https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/2).

 

Among his main achievements in research:

a) Discovery of the biosynthetic and metabolic pathways of the endocannabinoids and of some

endocannabinoid-like molecules;

b) Development of selective inhibitors of endocannabinoid activation and biosynthesis;

c) Studies of the regulation of endocannabinoid levels in tissues under physiological and pathological

conditions through the development of profiling techniques for endocannabinoid and endocannabinoid-like molecules;

d) First studies on the role of the endocannabinoid system in the regulation of food intake and

metabolism;

e) First studies on the effects of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids on endocannabinoid signalling;

f) Discovery of the anti-tumor actions of endocannabinoids;

g) Discovery of the first endovanilloids;

h) Discovery of the relationships between endocannabinoids and endovanilloids;

i) Discovery of the role of TRPV1 channels in the brain in the control of pain, anxiety and synaptic

plasticity;

l) Invention of the names “endocannabinoids” (used over 12500 times according to PubMed), “endovanilloids” and “endocannabinoidome”;

m) Development of dual target drugs with high efficacy and safety in experimental models of chronic pain and anxiety;

n) Discovery of the role of the endocannabinoid system in skeletal muscle differentiation;

o) Thorough study of the interactions between the endocannabinoidome end the gut microbiome in humans and animal models of metabolic, inflammatory and CNS disorders