Luca Pinton Awarded Elsevier WMS Prize

The certificate was jointly sponsored by the WMS, one of the most prestigious international societies in the neuromuscular field and Elsevier, an information & analytics company that specialises in scientific, technical and medical contents.

Luca is part of the Zammit (KCL) and Tedesco (UCL & Crick) Groups and his PhD revolves around studying a set of incurable disorders named laminopathies which are characterised by defects in the nuclear architecture of several cell types including the skeletal muscle ones. Luca’s ultimate goal is to create disease models to use for the development of novel mutation-specific and gene therapies.

"Being a pharmacist and a scientist, my primary interest has always been to translate my research into the clinics. I chose to work on this project because I saw the opportunity to have an impact on patients’ lives and contribute to the amelioration of their severe conditions.” 

On receiving the prize Luca said:

"Scientists often fail as we are at the edge of knowledge and there we generate more of it. This process can be frustrating in the long run and this is precisely why this award means a lot to me: it gives me the awareness that, despite the difficulties and failures that may occur, I am giving a meaningful contribution to the field to foster further the development of new therapies and, hopefully, improve patients’ lives. And the latter, for me, truly is the ultimate gratification”.

Luca added: "I would like to take the chance to thank my supervisors and colleagues who contributed to this work: their invaluable help was crucial to produce such high quality research and, thus, receive this award”.