Marino, Ignazio
Persona
Ignazio Marino al Festivaletteratura 2009 - ©Festivaletteratura
Ignazio Marino è un chirurgo di fama mondiale, specializzato in trapianti d'organo. Nato a Genova nel 1955 e laureato in medicina a Roma, lavora per alcuni anni come chirurgo al Policlinico Gemelli. Negli anni '80 si specializza in trapianti prima a Cambridge, in Inghilterra, poi negli USA dove rimane a lavorare per circa quindici anni. Dal 2006 è ritornato in Italia ed è stato eletto senatore ed oggi ricopre l'incarico di Presidente della Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul Servizio sanitario nazionale. È presidente di Imagine Onlus, impegnata nell'assistenza sanitaria di base nei paesi a basso indice di sviluppo. Nel 2012 ha dato vita a i-think, un think tank che si occupa di scienza, tecnologia e ambiente. Come editorialista per il settimanale "l'Espresso" cura la rubrica "Questioni di vita" e il blog "Il metodo di Gram".
Ignazio R. Marino is a world-famous surgeon, specialized in organ transplants. Born in Genoa in 1955, he graduated at Università Cattolica in Rome and worked for sometime at Policlinico Gemelli. In the early '80, in order to follow his passion and specialize in organ transplant, he left Italy and moved to England first and then to the United States to study at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1992 he took part in the first and only two transplants of liver from baboon to man. The following year, he was appointed co-director of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center's Transplant Centre, the only liver transplant department belonging to the US Government. In 1999, prompted by his desire to use in his experience in Italy, he moved back to Italy to create and manage a multi-organ transplant centre in Southern Italy, in Palermo. After starting programmes of transplant from cadaver and live donor, in July 2001 he performed the first traplant on a HIV-positive patient in Italy. In 2003, he went back to the USA and moved to Philadelphia where he is in charge of the transplant centre the Jefferson Medical College. Politics has always been his second interest, and during the year that he lived abroad he took part in politics debates and contributed writing articles in political magazines such as "Italianieuropei". He writes for "La Repubblica" and he holds a regular column for the monthly "L'Espresso", for which he edits "Punto Critico". In 2005 he published his first book, "Credere e curare" (Einaudi), an essay on the medical profession and its crisis, a profession which has changed and runs the risk of losing its mission and solidarity towards human beings. Also in 2005, he created IMAGINE ONLUS - Improving Medicine and Growing International Networks of Equality, a non-profit organization dealing with international solidarity and focusing on medical issues. In 2006, he decided to come back to Italy and run for general election. In April 2006, he was elected to the Senate as an independent with the Left Democrats (Democratici della Sinistra) and appointed President of the Senate's Health and Hygiene Commission. He run again in the 2008 general election and was elected to the Senate in the XVI Parliament.