ORDINARIO

e-mail: francesco.lo.coco@uniroma2.it
Office: +39 06 2090 3220
SSD: MED/15
SC: 06/D3 
Macro-area:
Malattie del sangue, oncologia e reumatologia

Prof. Francesco Lo Coco

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Education/Training
 
1974-1981 Medicine Degree  University of  Pisa , Italy
1982-1985 Hematology Specialist Degree, University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy
1992-1994 Research Fellowship in Molecular Biology, Columbia University, New York,USA
 
Professional Experience/Positions
 
1987-2002 University La Sapienza, Rome; Dept. of Hematology, Head Molecular Biology Lab.
1993-2002 University La Sapienza, Rome; Senior Staff Member, Hematology Section
2002-2005 University Tor Vergata, Rome; Associate Professor of Hematology
2005-present University Tor Vergata, Rome; Full Professor of Hematology
 
 
Selected Honors, Awards, Lectures
 
-International Prize G. Di Guglielmo, awarded by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (1992)
-S. Goshe Memorial Oration, Institute of Hematology, Medical College, Kolkata (India) (2009)
-Commendatore al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (2013)
-Sapio Award for Italian Research (Health section, 2014)
-Tata Memorial Center Oration, Mumbay, India (2015)
-G. Venosta Prize, AIRC (2016)
-P. Stryckmans Memorial Lecture (Belgian Society of Hematology (2017)
 
Editorial Board
 
2010-2013       Journal of Clinical Oncology (Editorial Board Member)
1996-2013       Leukemia (Editorial Board Member)
1994-present   Haematologica (Editorial Board Member)
 
Scientific Societies & Research Organizations
 
2000-2002: President of the Italian Society of Experimental Hematology (SIES)
2001-2003: Health Research Commission, Italian Ministry of Health
2008-2013: Chairman of the Education Committee of European Hematology Association (EHA)
2008-2012: International Members Committee, American Society of Hematology (ASH)
2012-2015: Member of the Nominating Committee, American Society of Hematology (ASH)
2012- present: Member of the Scientific Committee, Fondazione Veronesi
2014-present: President of the Scientific Committee Associazione Italiana contro le Leucemie
 
 
 
Metrics
 
401 peer-reviewed articles in journals covered by the JCR® and PubMed.
H-index: 89, Citations n. >34.000 (source: google scholar)
           
 
Research activity
 
Our main scientific interest and research activities include genetic characterization, diagnostics, monitoring and treatment of hematologic tumors, particularly acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL).  Over the last 20 years, laboratory and clinical investigations in this field have significantly contributed to improve patient outcome and provided several important concepts with general implications in the therapy of leukemia and cancer. Using APL as a model, our group showed the clinical advantage of administering pre-emptive therapy for molecular relapse in leukemia, i.e. anticipating the delivery of salvage treatment at the time of MRD recurrence and prior to the occurrence of full-blown relapse. 
A recent clinical study coordinated at Tor Vergata University demonstrated the efficacy of the first curative treatment for an acute leukemia that does not include chemotherapy, providing a paradigm of the benefit targeted therapies in acute leukemias. Research on AML is mainly focused on MRD and clonal evolution as well as on the identification of new genetic lesions and targeted therapies.

Selected papers

• Lo Coco F, Diverio D, Pandolfi PP, et al. Molecular evaluation of residual disease as a predictor of relapse in acute promyelocytic leukemia. Lancet 340: 1437,1992.
• Ye BH, Lista F, Lo Coco F, et al. Alterations of a zinc-finger encoding gene,BCL-6 in diffuse large-cell lymphoma.  Science 262: 747,199
• Offit K, Lo Coco F, Louie DC, Parsa NZ, Leung D, Portlock C, Ye BH, Lista F, Filippa DA, Rosenbaum A , Ladany M, Jhanwar S , Dalla-Favera R , Chaganti R SK. Rearrangement of the BCL-6 gene as a prognostic marker in diffuse large-cell lymphoma. New England Journal of Medicine 331:74,1994.
• Mandelli F, Diverio D, Awisati G, Luciano A , Barbui T, Bernasconi C, Broccia G, Cerri R, Falda M , Fioritoni G, Leoni F, Liso V, Petti MC, Rodeghiero F, Saglio G , Vegna ML, Visani G, Muus P, Willemze R, Jehn U, Pelicci PG, Biondi A, Lo Coco F. Molecular remission in PML/RARa-positive acute promyelocytic leukemia by combined all-trans retinoic acid and idarubicin (AIDA) therapy.Blood 90:1014,1997.
• Di Croce L, Raker VA, Corcaro M, Fazi F, Fanelli M, Fuks F, Lo Coco F, et al. Methyltransferase recruitnent to target promoters as a mechanismo of DNA hypermethylation by an oncogenic transcription factor. Science 295: 1079,2002.
• Falini B, Mecucci C, Tiacci E, Alcalay M, Rosati R, Pasqualucci L, La Starza R, Diverio D, Colombo E, Santucci A, Bigema B, Pacini R, Pucciarini A, Liso A, Vignetti M, Fazi P, Meani N, Pettirossi V, Saglio G, Mandelli F, Lo Coco F, Pelicci PG, Martelli MF. Cytoplasmic Nucleophosmin (NPM) Identifres a Subtype of Acute Myelogenous Leukemia With A Normal Karyotype and NPM Gene Mutations. New England Journal of Medicine 352;2 54,2005.
• Lo-Coco F, Avvisati G, Vignetti M et al. Arsenic trioxide and retinoic acid for acute promyelocytic leukemia. New England Journal of Medicine 368: 111-121, 2013
• Wei S, Kozono S, Kats L, Nechama M, Li W, Guarnerio J, Luo M, You MH, Yao Y, Kondo A, Hu H, Bozkurt G, Moerke NJ, Cao S, Reschke M, Chen CH, Rego EM, Lo-Coco F, Cantley LC, Lee TH, Wu H, Zhang Y, Pandolfi PP, Zhou XZ, Lu KP.Active Pin1 is a key target of all-trans retinoic acid in acute promyelocytic leukemia and breast cancer. Nature Medicine, 21(5):457-66, 2015
• Guarnerio J, Bezzi M, Jeong JC, Paffenholz SV, Berry K, Naldini MM, Lo Coco F, Tay Y, Beck AH, Pandolfi PP Oncogenic Role of Fusion-circRNAs Derived from Cancer-Associated Chromosomal Translocations. Cell 166: 1055-1056, 2016
• Lo-Coco F, Di Donato L, Schlenk RF. Targeted therapy alone for acute promyelocytic leukemia.
• New England Journal of Medicine 374(12):1197-8, 2016.
• Döhner H, Estey E, Grimwade D, Amadori S, Appelbaum FR, Büchner T, Dombret H, Ebert BL, Fenaux P, Larson RA, Levine RL, Lo Coco F, Naoe T, Niederwieser D, Ossenkoppele GJ, Sanz M, Sierra J, Tallman MS, Tien HF, Wei AH, Löwenberg B, Bloomfield CD. Diagnosis and management of AML in adults: 2017 ELN recommendations from an international expert panel. Blood; 129: 424-447 2017
• Stone RM, Mandrekar SJ, Sanford BL, Laumann K, Geyer S, Bloomfield CD, Thiede C, Prior TW, Döhner K, Marcucci G, Lo Coco F, Klisovic RB, Wei A, Sierra J, Sanz MA, Brandwein JM, de Witte T, Niederwieser D, Appelbaum FR, Medeiros BC, Tallman MS, Krauter J, Schlenk RF, Ganser A, Serve H, Ehninger G, Amadori S, Larson RA, Döhner H. Midostaurin plus Chemotherapy for Acute Myeloid Leukemia with a FLT3 Mutation. New England Journal of Medicine, 377(5):454-464, 2017