Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Professor Antonio Persico of Unimore has been awarded the prestigious title of INSAR Fellow 2024 for his contributions to autism research

The Full Professor of Child Neuropsychiatry at Unimore has been awarded the title of INSAR Fellow 2024 for his significant contributions to autism research. INSAR, founded in 2001, promotes autism research globally and organizes an annual meeting to share scientific advancements. Persico is globally recognized for his pioneering studies on ASD and biomarkers.

Professor Antonio Persico, Full Professor of Child Neuropsychiatry at the Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences at Unimore, has recently been selected by the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) as an INSAR Fellow 2024, one of the highest honors awarded by the society to researchers who have made significant contributions to improving the lives of individuals with autism.

The program, which began in 2017, aims to recognize the most distinguished members of the scientific community whose work has had a significant international impact on the scientific understanding of autism spectrum disorder, clinical practice, educational methods, and/or policies. The Fellows 2024 were announced at INSAR 2024 during the awards ceremony held on Thursday, May 16, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia, in the presence of INSAR President Petrus de Vries (South Africa) and Chair of the Fellowship Committee, Lonnie Zwaigenbaum (Canada).

The International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) was founded in 2001 with the goal of promoting autism research and related activities. Governed by a voluntary Board of Directors, the society is dedicated to improving the scientific and clinical understanding of autism globally.

Each year, INSAR organizes the Annual Meeting, a scientific conference held in May that brings together researchers and scholars from around the world to share and disseminate new scientific advancements on autism. The society also publishes the scientific journal "Autism Research."

“It is a great honor for me to be designated to receive this important recognition,” commented Professor Antonio Persico. “On a personal level, it means seeing the value of the scientific results we have produced in over twenty years of work in the field of autism being recognized. On the other hand, it is the first time that an Italian researcher and clinician has received the fellowship. This award therefore also recognizes the significant contribution that all Italian research has made and continues to make to the scientific progress and clinical management of people with autism.”

Antonio M. Persico is Full Professor of Child Neuropsychiatry at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He earned his medical degree in 1986 from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, where he completed his residency program in Psychiatry in 1990. During the early part of his career, he focused on the genetics of addiction, brain plasticity in response to repeated exposure to psychostimulants, and the trophic roles of serotonin in the development of the somatosensory system. Since 1998, his primary research interest has shifted towards autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

In 2001, he published the first study on the involvement of the Reelin gene in ASD (Mol. Psychiatry, 6:150-159); also in 2001, observing modest neurodevelopmental anomalies in serotonin transporter knockout mice, he first suggested that antidepressants working by blocking the serotonin transporter might have teratogenic effects in humans by increasing the risk of ASD (J. Neurosci., 21:6862-6873), a risk that has subsequently been demonstrated; and in 2011, he was the first to report the high presence of p-cresol, a substance with negative effects on neurodevelopment found in many food additives and common objects, in the urine of autistic individuals (Biomarkers, 16:252-260), outlining a new paradigm useful for studying gene-environment interactions in ASD. In 2006, he was among the co-authors who received the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences of the USA for the article "A genetic variant that disrupts MET transcription is associated with autism," led by Pat Levitt and published in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. (103:16834-9, 2006).

Since 2010, through his clinical work at the "Campus Bio-Medico" University of Rome, then at the University of Messina and currently at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, he has created new Child Neuropsychiatry programs with a special focus on ASD and, more recently, on Phelan-McDermid Syndrome. He has been a member of the European consortium EU-AIMS. His research interest is primarily translational, focusing on identifying biomarkers for the early diagnosis of autism and for the response to behavioral therapies, as well as developing new pharmacological interventions based on scientific evidence.

Categorie: International - english