There is an Italian in Boston who is writing the future of humanity and a great new chapter in personalized medicine. He applies machine learning and quantum mechanics to genomics to prevent and treat the diseases of our century. His name is Riccardo Sabatini, he is 40 years old, he is considered one of the most influential scientists in the world, but he has always been an entrepreneur.
In these days, CNN has published on the home page the video of his participation in Life Itself, the world conference that brings together the most brilliant minds on the planet in terms of medicine and health. “We are studying a new strategy to attack cancer. And we are working to create a type of drug capable of reactivating the immune system and targeting it against cancer,” said Sabatini. “We’ll never stop until it’s done”. We won’t stop until we make it. So he concluded the speech while in the room, everyone stood up for a standing ovation, including the Nobel Prize for Immuno-Oncology, Jim Allison.
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That of Sabatini is a beautiful story. Cremonese, degree in physics in Brescia, master in quantum mechanics in Trieste, doctorate in Sissa (School of Advanced Studies), post doctorate at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale (EPFL) in Lausanne: Sabatini is a physics talent who has moved to genomics. He soon realized that his ability to work with numbers could be put at the service of those who read the code of life. So he emails Craig Venter, the man who first sequenced the DNA. After 6 days he was invited to San Diego, after 10 days he was hired by Human Longevity and obtained the O1 visa. “We have digitized life. With thousands of colleagues in different centers around the world we are getting closer and closer to understanding the great mechanisms of human biology.”
Stay a few years alongside Venter, then leave a dream place for a new adventure: Orionis Biosciences, with a team made up of other brilliant stars of biology and proteomics. Straddling the US and Europe, Orionis has developed a revolutionary approach to tackling complex diseases such as cancer. These days they announced that they have closed a Series C round for $ 55 million (from Cormorant Asset Management, Novartis and a number of high-caliber investment funds). Now human experimentation begins.
“A deep-tech startup has incredible barriers to overcome, but every success in this industry can truly change the lives of millions of people.”
Sabatini was the protagonist of a talk at the TED in Vancouver in 2016, which at the age of 34 consecrated him worldwide. He went to dinner with Al Gore, he knows Elon Musk, he has access to the big investors in Silicon Valley. Barack Obama called him to the White House as Young Innovator in Health, the only European at The White House Frontiers Conference 2016.
“Italy gave me the training, America the connections and the ability to dream big. All of us, when we are young, want to change the world, but then as we grow up we lose the courage to do so”.
“I share the thoughts of Peter Diamandis (entrepreneur, speaker, innovator, ndr), when he says, “The best thing you can do in life? It’s earning a billion dollars, saving a billion people.” I don’t know when that will happen, but we’ll get there. “