Remembering Professor Gaetano “Nino” Salvatore

Excerpt

The 20 anniversary of the death of Professor Gaetano Salvatore on June 25 of this year is the right occasion to remember such an eminent scientist. “Nino”, the nickname used by all his friends and colleagues, has been an unforgotten and unforgettable academic and scientist, one of the most influential voice of European biomedical culture and science, especially in the endocrinology field, for at least three decades. He was the model of absolute commitment and abnegation to scientific research in the medical field, becoming a distinguished international scientist thanks to his work among Naples in Italy and Bethesda in the United States. His multifaceted, volcanic, and charismatic personality characterized an outstanding career: Full Professor at the very young age of 33, Dean of the Medical School at the University Federico II of Naples, President of the ‘Stazione Zoologica’ in Naples, head of the Centre of Experimental Endocrinology and Oncology of the National Research Council (CNR), national member of the prestigious ‘Accademia dei Lincei’, Fogarty Scholarship in Residence at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda are only few of its numerous achievements [1]. Everything at the Medical School of University Federico II in Naples still talks about him: the lecture hall, the street running along the School of Medicine, the research Centre of Experimental Endocrinology and Oncology of the National research Council and the genetic research centre Biogem are dedicated to his memory and have his name. He was widely known for his studies on thyroid physiology and diseases, that led to a significant progress of the knowledge in the field of endocrinology. His main scientific contributions regarded physiopathology and comparative physiopathology of the thyroid gland that led to the discovery in the ’60 s of the lowest vertebrate and invertebrate classes with a thyroid function and the biosynthesis of iodoproteins very similar in the function to thyroglobulin: the Chordates (Cephalochordate amphioxus), the Urochordates (Ciona intestinalis and Clavelina klaepadiformis) and the Cyclostomata (Petromyzon planeri) [2]. Moreover he studied in depth the molecular mechanism at the basis of thyroid hormones. He also developed a new method for the detection and purification of iodoproteins and described a novel iodoprotein rich in iodine and thyroid hormones, named 27 S thyroglobulin [3, 4]. One of his main contributions in the field of Thyroidology was the intuition to develop in the 1980s a model of a thyroid cell culture system that recapitulates all the thyroid’s differentiated functions in vitro. This rat thyroid cell line, named FRT-L-5, was then realized by Francesco Saverio Impiombato and it is widely used up today by thyroid researchers from all over the world in fundamental research and in clinical tests for thyroid autoimmune diseases and hormonal bioassays [5]. Furthermore he was active also in the clinical endocrinology field and encouraged, as a major proponent of a fundamental law in Italy, the introduction of the consumption of iodized salt to counteract endemic goitre and the screening of all the new-borns for congenital hypothyroidism. …