#TalentiUniSR: Paolo Strati

From the South of Italy to the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, and then to the United States: this is Paolo Strati’s wonderful journey, #TalentiUniSR for this issue. After a medical degree cum laude in Medicine and Surgery and a Residency in Internal Medicine in UniSR, Paolo Strati is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, TX. A talent we had already written about in 2016, when he was the recipient of the Outstanding Research Achievement Award and was promoted to the academic rank of Assistant Professor at the Mayo Clinic. “I owe to the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele everything I have achieved and whom I am professionally” says Paolo. “UniSR is able to acknowledge who is committed, and is ready to support its most enthusiast students with every possible mean. I truly owe everything to our University”. Exceptionally talented and a very humble person, he has a dream: spending the rest of his life with his wife and two kids.

Paolo Strati

I graduated cum laude in Medicine and Surgery at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milano and completed a Residency in Internal Medicine at the same institution. Subsequently, I completed a second residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN) and a Hematology-Oncology Fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, TX). I also pursued subspecialty training, with a Leukemia Fellowship at MDACC and a Malignant Hematology Fellowship at the Queen Mary University of London, Barts Cancer Institute, UK. In 2016 I was promoted to the academic rank of Assistant Professor at the Mayo Clinic, and I currently work as a faculty in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at MDACC

After graduating from high school, I had the great fortune to succeed in the selection exams to get into the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and another very prestigious University in Lombardia. The reason why I eventually decided to select San Raffaele was its innovative personality and its dynamic approach to medicine, which I found more stimulating as compared to more traditional and not very practical programs offered by other institutions. I would make this same choice a million times

I owe to the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University everything I have achieved and whom I am professionally. In addition to the exceptional education it provided, the main opportunity I received from our institution was an outstanding mentorship. In fact, my mentors, Prof. Federico Caligaris-Cappio and Prof. Clara Camaschella, were able to acknowledge and value my skills and interests, helping me finding my way and facilitating my transition to the United States

Currently I am an Assistant Professor, Term Tenure Track, in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, Texas. From a clinical standpoint, I mainly take care of patients with Non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphoma, and I am the principal investigator of multiple clinical trials investigating the safety and efficacy of drugs able to target the tumor microenvironment for the treatment of these patients. From a research perspective, I collaborate with the Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, where we are trying to understand the role played by macrophages in B-cell lymphomas, and where we are also trying to clarify the biological relevance of apoptosis alternative proteins, in order to develop new drugs for the treatment of patients with T-cell lymphoma

Our University grants a very high level of education, which includes cutting-edge science and intensive exposure to clinical practice. The Vita-Salute San Raffaele University’s methodology is perfectly in line with the anglo-saxon system, and thanks to this approach my transition to the US system has occurred very smoothly

I am very persistent (not to say stubborn). When I identify a goal, nobody can stop me, no matter how much time and how many sacrifices I will need to do to achieve it

“Nothing comes out of diamonds, but flowers blossom from manure”, taken from the song/poem Via del Campo, by Fabrizio de Andre’. I have frequently encountered the misconception according to which the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, being a private university, would be an elitist institution, only open to a certain milanese bourgeoisie. There is nothing more wrong than this, and I believe I am its living proof. Son of a simple worker and a housewife, the institution has supported me with facilitations and scholarships, based not only on my then limited financial possibilities, but also and most important of all on my merit. The Vita-Salute San Raffaele University is able to acknowledge who is committed, and is ready to support its most enthusiast students with every possible mean. I truly owe everything to our University

To spend the rest of my life with my wife Angela and with my 2 kids, Elena and Francesco, whom I deeply love. Career is something to which I have always committed all my energies, but it is not worth a second spent with my family