Mario RIZZETTO

Honorary Prof. of Gastroenterology, University of Torino, Italy

Mario RIZZETTO is Honorary Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Torino, Italy. He qualified in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Padova in 1969. He had a research stage at the Middlesex Hospital in London in 1972-1973 where he described the Liver-Kidney microsomal autoantibody diagnostic of autoimmune type 2 hepatitis.

From 1995 to 2015 he has been the head of the Chair of Hepatogastroenterology of the University of Torino. His professional and scientific carrier has been mainly devoted to the pathobiology, natural history and therapy of chronic viral hepatitides; his specific reseach field has been the characterization and clinical evaluation of the Hepatitis D Virus and related hepatitis D which he discovered in the late 1970s.For this discovery, he received several international awards, among which are:
+ International King Faisal Prize for Medicine 1985 (Saudi Arabia).
+ Robert Koch Prize for Medicine, 1987 (Germany).
+ William Beaumont Prize for Gastroenterology, 1988 (USA).
+ Hans Popper Prize for Hepatology, 1992 (Switzerland).
+ EASL Recognition Award, 2006 (Vienna).
+ Baruch S. Blumberg Prize for Viral Hepatitis ,2017 (USA).