Background
Dr. Pettoello-Mantovani graduated (magna cum laude) in Medicine in 1983 from the University of Rome, “La Sapienza”, Italy. He received his PhD in Pediatrics from the Universities of Turin and Naples in 1988 and conducted his post-doctoral training in Microbiology and Clinical Mycology at the Catholic University of Sacred Hearth in Rome, Italy. From 1989 to 2003, he worked continually at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) of Yeshiva University in New York.
Dr. Pettoello-Mantovani received his training in retrovirology under the supervision of Dr. Peter Nara, at NIH, in the “Virus Biology Section” at the U.S. Army research Center of Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland (NIH Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology, directed by Dr. Robert Gallo). His Research Projects have been supported by several grants from major research agencies, including the US National Institute of Health (NIH), Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA), the Italian National Research Council (CNR), the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS), the Italian Ministry of Health and the European Union Commission (Horizon 2020). In 1994 he was awarded with the US Class of "Outstanding Professor" and later received the USA Citizenship as "outstanding researcher” for his scientific achievements.
Dr. Pettoello-Mantovani's main research interests have been in the fields of physiopathology of metabolism and nutrition and in Infectious Diseases. His primary research achievements are related to his studies on opportunistic infectious agents and their metabolic products (natural toxins and killer toxins). He gave a major contribution to the design of animal models (Thy/Liv SCID-hu mice) used to perform in vivo physiology and immunology studies and to test vaccines and novel drug therapies. In 1998 he has been appointed President of the Executive Committee of the “World Health Policy Forum”, an international Swiss based Foundation dedicated to the protection and improvement of human health. In 2004 established and directed the Doctorate Research Program "Food and Nutrition Science in Pediatrics" at the University of Foggia, Italy, where he has been the Director of the Residency Program in Pediatrics since 2004. From 2003 to 2006 he was vice director of the Department of “Medical and Surgical Sciences” of the University of Foggia, Italy.
Throughout his professional career, he has developed a strong expertise in pediatric public health, documented by an extended number of scientific publications in the area of child health and wellbeing and pediatric healthcare services. In 2021 Dr. Pettoello-Mantovani was appointed Vice president of the Board of the Italian Full professors of Pediatrics and vice-president of the Italian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP). Finally, in 2019 he has been elected President of the European Pediatric Association, the Union of 50 National European Pediatric Societies and Associations (EPA-UNEPSA), based in Berlin, Germany and of the "Association Pour l’Activitè et la Recherche Scientifiques", based in Bevaix, Neuchatel, Switzerland.
