Ignazio Marino

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Ignazio Marino
Ignazio Marino - Festivaletteratura 2012 01.JPG
Marino in 2012
33rd Mayor of Rome
In office
12 June 2013 – 31 October 2015
Preceded byGianni Alemanno
Succeeded byVirginia Raggi
Member of the Italian Senate
In office
28 April 2006 – 22 May 2013
Personal details
Born
Ignazio Roberto Maria Marino

(1955-03-10) 10 March 1955 (age 66)
Genoa, Italy
NationalityItalian
Political partyDemocratic Party
Alma materUniversità Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
ProfessionSurgeon

Ignazio Roberto Maria Marino[1] (pronounced [iɲˈɲattsjo maˈriːno]; born 10 March 1955) is an Italian transplant surgeon who was Mayor of Rome from 2013 to 2015.

As a surgeon, he trained with Thomas Starzl, who had pioneered liver transplantion in humans. In 1992–1993, as a member of Thomas Starzl's team at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States, he conducted two baboon-to-human liver transplants. He founded the ISMETT organ transplant center in Palermo, Sicily; Marino was the CEO and the Director of ISMETT from 1997 until 2002. In 2001 he performed the first organ transplant in Italy for a person with HIV. The patient lived for 18 years with full function of the transplanted organ. As a civil rights activist, on October 18, 2014, as Mayor of Rome, Marino registered the marriages of 16 same-sex couples. Same-sex marriages were illegal in Italy at the time, and by registering the marriages, Mayor Marino wanted to force the hand of national legislators to clarify a deepening legal muddle around same-sex unions.[2] Same-sex civil unions were eventually legalized in Italy in 2016.

In the United States he has held chairs as Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

From 2009 to 2015 he was a member of the center-left Democratic Party and held a seat in the Italian Senate from 2006 until his election as mayor of Rome. He was elected Mayor of Rome in June 2013. Shortly after his victory in the elections, he was approached by an organized crime network that rigged public contracts and embezzled funds. Marino took the case to prosecutors, starting the 2014 Rome corruption scandal. In 2015, at the beginning of October, the opposition parties of M5S and Fratelli d'Italia, started a false scandal against Mayor Marino. On 12 October 2015, Marino resigned from the Office of Mayor to prove his innocence. Subsequently, on October 29 he retired the resignation.[3] Nevertheless, on 30 October he was ousted from his position after 26 of the 48 members of the City Council resigned. On 7 October 2016, the Rome court acquitted Marino over the allegations of embezzlement, fraud, and forgery. The court decided for a full acquittal and ruled that Marino's actions "did not constitute a crime" and that the alleged facts "did not take place," according to article 530 of the Italian C.P.P.[4]

Currently, Ignazio Marino is Professor of Surgery at the Thomas Jefferson University, School of Medicine, and holds the role of Executive Vice President for both Thomas Jefferson University (founded in 1824 and home to one of the top five Faculties of Medicine and Surgery in the United States) and Jefferson Health, a facility with 16 hospitals with an annual turnover of about 6 billion dollars.[5]

Biography[]

Early life and education[]

Marino was born in Genoa to a Sicilian father and a Swiss mother and is the oldest of three children (he has two sisters). He graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome.

Medical career[]

Board-certified in General and Vascular Surgery, he spent 4 years training in the 2 most prestigious transplant centers in the world: the Transplantation Institute of the University of Cambridge, England (then the only liver transplantion division in Europe), directed by Prof. Sir . During his time in Cambridge, Dr. Marino published a paper on the reperfusion syndrome occurring during liver transplantion (Transplantation, 1985). The paper is still quoted today as a thorough study of this complex clinical syndrome; and the Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, directed by Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, the pioneer who in 1963 performed the first liver transplantion on a human being. In Pittsburgh, Dr. Marino completed an American Society of Transplant Surgeons approved multi-organ transplant fellowship under the direct leadership of Dr. Starzl and was hired by him as an attending physician and a Faculty member in 1991. Pittsburgh was then by far the most active Liver transplantation center in the world: for example, in 1990-1991 alone, more than 1,000 liver transplantion were performed at the Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute.

In 1988, Marino published in Cancer the first paper ever showing that the hepatic epithelioid hemangioendothelioma could be successfully treated with liver transplantion.[6]

In 1992 Ignazio Marino was appointed Associate Director of the National Liver Transplant Center of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs of Pittsburgh, then the only Liver transplantation department of the Government of the United States. Marino was a member of the surgical team which in June 1992 and January 1993 performed two baboon-to-human liver xenotransplants in a clinical trial coordinated by Starzl.[7][n 1].

In 1995, Marino published a paper showing, for the first time, that the age and sex of the donor are linked to different patient survival after liver transplantation.[8]

In 1997 Marino founded the ISMETT (Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and Advanced Specialized Therapies) organ transplant center in Palermo, Sicily. Marino was the CEO and the Director of ISMETT from 1997 until 2002, the first liver transplantion center in Sicily, founded through a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Ministry of Health of the Government of Italy Ministry of Health (Italy)of the Category:Government of Italy.

In 2001 he performed the first organ transplant in Italy on a person with HIV undergoing highly active antiretroviral therapy—a kidney transplant made in response to a personal request from the patient himself (along with the donor, his father), who had been turned down by other Italian transplant centres.[9] A clinical success, the operation sparked an institutional dispute in Italy at the time.[n 2][13]

In 2002 Marino moved to Philadelphia at the Thomas Jefferson University. At the Thomas Jefferson University the liver transplantion Program was in need of general reorganization. Under Dr. Marino’s lead, clinical outcomes started to improve dramatically. Thomas Jefferson University’s 1-year liver transplantion patient survival rate went from 78% to 100% and Thomas Jefferson University’s 30-months liver transplantion patient survival rate went from 56% to 92% according to a Kaplan–Meier estimator actuarial curve.

Ignazio Marino is the recipients of several international medical awards, including but not limited to the 2010 Award for contributions to the fight against AIDS;[14] Honorary Doctor of Science degree (2015) at the Thomas Jefferson University; the Longmire Professorship of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Longmire Surgical Society Society.[15]

Marino has personally performed over 650 transplants. Marino delivered more than 700 international scientific lectures and is the author of over 500 peer-review articles and has authored several scientific books. In 2005 he published a book with Einaudi ("Le Vele" series) entitled Credere e curare ("Treating and Believing"); the book deals with the medical profession and the influence that faith, seen as a religious creed but also as compassion, solidarity, and empathy towards all human beings, has upon it. In 2005 he founded Imagine ONLUS, an international non-profit organization engaged in international solidarity activities with special regard to health issues. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Transplantation, Liver Transplantation, , and 9 other international scientific journals.

Ignazio Marino is Professor of Surgery at the Thomas Jefferson University, School of Medicine, and, from 2020, Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health in Philadelphia.[5]

In 2020, Marino was appointed Member of the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia International Medicine.[16]

Political career[]

Entry into politics[]

A good friend of Massimo D'Alema, Marino was persuaded by him to enter into politics as an independent candidate with the Democrats of the Left in the 2006 general elections, and was elected as a Senator. On June 6, 2006, Marino was elected Chair of the Health Committee[17] of the Senate of the Republic (Italy). Among the main achievements of Senator Marino as Chair of the Health Committee:[18] - a national law was proposed and approved to manage and reduce patients' waiting list time and to establish new rules for public/private physicians' practice in Italian National Health Care System hospitals; - a law proposal on living will that started a national debate; - an international meeting on living will from the clinical, bioethical and religious perspectives, attended by the President of Italy; - a national law was proposed and approved that allocates 180 million euro per year for a total of 10 years to patients who have been infected (hepatitis, HIV) during hospital care; - a national law was proposed and approved to allocate dedicated funds in the national budget law for researchers under 40 in the biomedical field according to peer review criteria by an international committee - a dramatic innovation in the Italian research funds allocation system. Given his professional background, in his new capacity, he promoted several legislative activities mainly dealing with healthcare, education, scientific research, and bioethics.

Following the fall of Romano Prodi's government and an early election held in 2008, he was confirmed in the Senate, where he was appointed whip of the Democratic Party in the Standing Committee on Health and Chair of the Investigative Committee on National Health System.[19] In his second tenure as a Senator, Marino gained public exposure due to his strong support for the right to die and a clear advance health care directive law during the dramatic final days of Eluana Englaro, which caused widespread debate and a constitutional crisis within Italy. Following such events, Marino has become recognizable in Italian politics as a strong advocate of a lay country, gaining vocal support from left-wing parties and the Italian Radicals, but also being criticized by socially conservative politicians also within the Democratic Party, such as Paola Binetti. During his mandate, he has promoted: - a national study on quality assurance and outcomes of all major healthcare districts in Italy; - an investigation on the much-debated and controversial death of an inmate; - a national investigation on mental illnesses and psychiatric care; - a national investigation on severe disabilities and their treatments; - a national investigation on corruption in the National Health Care System; - a national investigation on hospitals built-in or near earthquake areas.

In June 2009 he publicly announced his intention to run as a candidate for the Democratic Party leadership election in October. His leadership election platform was mostly focused on social rights, public health and environmentalism. He came third in the election, winning 12.5% of the votes.

Mayor of Rome[]

Marino ran the 2013 election for Mayor of Rome with the support of a centre-left alliance. After leading in the first round[20] he was elected (on 10 June) Mayor of Rome at the second ballot, winning 63.9% of the votes in a run-off against the centre-right candidate, the incumbent mayor Gianni Alemanno.[21]

Among Marino's projects has been the visionary but controversial closing of the Via dei Fori Imperiali and Piazza di Spagna to cars and opening to pedestrian and bicycle traffic only. Mayor Marino cited his experiences as a cyclist in Philadelphia as the foundation for his having learned to live without a car.[22]

Shortly after his victory in the elections, he was approached by an organized crime network that rigged public contracts and embezzled funds. Marino took the case to prosecutors, starting the 2014 Rome corruption scandal.

Ignazio Marino is the only Mayor of Rome ever invited to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos, January 22–25, 2014)[23] At Davos Marino networked with the Coca Cola CEO, Muhtar Kent, and the McKinsey CEO, Dominic Barton, to discuss philanthropic fundraising for the archeology in Rome.[24]

On October 18, 2014, Marino registered the marriages of 16 same-sex couples who requested it to the Municipality, which followed similar acts by other Italian mayors. Same-sex marriages and civil unions were illegal in Italy at the time, and by registering the marriages, Mayor Marino hoped to force the hand of national legislators to clarify a deepening legal muddle around same-sex unions, particularly for Italians married abroad.[25] Same-sex civil unions were eventually legalized in Italy in 2016.

On 12 October 2015, Marino resigned amidst an accusation of expense scandal that had been made by the opposition parties of M5S Five Star Movement and Fratelli d'Italia Fratelli d'Italia (political party), but on 29 October he retired the resignation. Nevertheless, on 30 October he was ousted from his position after 26 of the 48 members of the City Council resigned. He was replaced by a government-appointed commissioner.[26]

On 7 October 2016, Rome court acquitted Marino over the allegations of embezzlement, fraud, and forgery that had been made by the opposition parties of M5S Five Star Movement and Fratelli d'Italia Fratelli d'Italia (political party) and after which he had stepped down to prove his innocence.[27] The court decided for a full acquittal and ruled that Marino's actions "did not constitute a crime" and that the alleged facts "did not take place," according to article 530 of the Italian C.P.P. Court of Italy] In summary, upon his election, he found Rome on the verge of bankruptcy. In 2013, Rome was in the red with a loss of $888 million. Furthermore, its public transport system had a loss of $951 million. In 28 months Ignazio Marino balanced both budgets. He also conducted intense fundraising activity, attracting national and international resources, involving philanthropists who were interested in supporting Rome’s activity to preserve its archeological heritage. On the whole, in 28 months he raised over $14 million (€13.167.313). Among his decisions as Mayor: • the promotion of a new development plan that brought to the requalification of abandoned urban areas and to a total of private investments close to $2 billion; • the closing of Rome’s landfill, the largest in the world, and the promotion of efficient policies of the differentiated waste collection; • the opening of a new subway line with 21 new stations covering a total of 18 km railways; • the cutting of internal excessive spendings and the creation of a single purchasing center; • involving tax police officers to check the city books left by previous administrations; • the close collaboration with prosecutors investigating on mafia affiliations; • the pedestrianization of large portions of the city center; • the registration of same-sex unions, still unregulated under the Italian law; • the protection of large green areas from real estate speculation.

Return to Medicine and Surgery[]

In 2016, Ignazio Marino returned to the USA where he is Professor of Surgery at the Thomas Jefferson University, School of Medicine, and Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health in Philadelphia.[5] At Jefferson he started a new curriculum for medical students: a selected group of students will attend the School of Medicine for 3 years in Europe and 3 years in the US and, eventually, they will be able to practice medicine in both continents.[28] Dr. Marino is working with the Nobel Laureate Alvin Roth to implement a new method aimed at increasing kidney transplantation.[29][30]

Notes and references[]

Notes
  1. ^ Although partially successful on purely technical grounds, this novel approach to the treatment of terminal cirrhosis from chronic hepatitis B infection turned out to be a clinical dead end. These were the first xenotransplants (i.e. animal-to-human organ transplants) to be performed since the case of Baby Fae (a 2.2  kg newborn infant who had survived just 21 days after receiving a baboon heart in 1984). Despite their different size, baboons share many of the physiological and genetic characteristics of human beings but are resistant to chronic hepatitis B virus infection. Both transplanted patients had terminal liver failure due to hepatitis B. One, an HIV-positive 35-year-old man, lived 70 days after the transplant and maintained nearly normal liver function, the other, a 62-year-old man, survived 26 days without regaining consciousness.[7] This clinical strategy was not pursued. In addition to clinical problems, such as organ rejection, there exists a threat of possible cross-species transmission of disease, as well as other bioethical/animalist concerns. At the time, these two xenotransplants provoked heated controversy in this regard.
  2. ^ The Minister of Health, Girolamo Sirchia, publicly criticized Marino for undertaking the operation,[9] and the National Transplant Centre (CNT) advised him not to perform any further transplants on people with HIV.[10] This stance conflicted with the opinion of the president of the bioethics panel of the National Research Council who openly supported Marino's decision, as well as with views expressed by (among others) the president of the National Bioethics Committee, Giovanni Berlinguer, who argued that people with HIV should not be excluded a priori from the benefits of transplantation.[10] Nowadays, similar transplants are routinely conducted both in Italy and elsewhere.[11][12]
References
  1. ^ "Senatori Eletti (Italia ed Estero)" (PDF). Elenco alfabetico degli eletti nella XVII legislatura. Senato della Repubblica. 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2013.
  2. ^ Pianigiani, Gaia (2014-10-23). "Unable to Marry Gay Couples, Some Italian Mayors Rebel". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-11-11.
  3. ^ "Rome mayor resigns amid expenses scandal". 8 October 2015.
  4. ^ https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/10/07/world/europe/ap-eu-italy-rome-mayor.html
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Leadership | Jefferson, Abington & Aria. Better Together".
  6. ^ Marino, Ignazio R.; Todo, Satoru; Tzakis, Mddreas G.; Klintmalm, Goran; Kelleher, Michael; Iwatsuki, Shunaburo; Starzl, Thomas E.; Esquivel, Carlos O. (15 November 1988). "Treatment of Hepatic Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma With Liver Transplantation". Cancer. 62 (10): 2079–2084. doi:10.1002/1097-0142(19881115)62:10<2079::aid-cncr2820621002>3.0.co;2-j. PMC 2990224. PMID 3052779.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Starzl, Thomas E.; Murase, Noriko; Tzakis, Andreas; Fung, John J.; Todo, Satoru; Demetris, Anthony J.; Manez, Rafael; Marino, Ignazio R.; Valdivia, Luis (August 1994). "Clinical xenotransplantation". Xenotransplantation. 1 (1): 3–7. doi:10.1111/j.1399-3089.1994.tb00044.x. PMC 3000172. PMID 21151801.
  8. ^ Marino, IR; Doyle, HR; Aldrighetti, L; Doria, C; McMichael, J; Gayowski, T; Fung, JJ; Tzakis, AG; Starzl, TE (December 1995). "Effect of donor age and sex on the outcome of liver transplantation". Hepatology. 22 (6): 1754–62. PMC 2965620. PMID 7489985.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b "Primo trapianto in Italia a un sieropositivo". La Repubblica (in Italian). 28 August 2001. Retrieved 11 June 2013.
  10. ^ Jump up to: a b Criscenti, Gianfranco (6 October 2001). "L'Hiv esclude il trapianto?". Galileo - giornale di scienza (in Italian). Retrieved 11 June 2013.
  11. ^ Bossini, Nicola; Sandrini, Silvio; Valerio, Francesca (July 2012). "Il trapianto di rene nel paziente con infezione da HIV" [Kidney transplant in patients with HIV infection] (PDF). Giornale Italiano di Nefrologia (in Italian). 29 (4): 404–17. PMID 22843153.
  12. ^ Norman, SP; Kommareddi, M; Kaul, DR (July 2012). "Update on kidney transplantation in HIV-infected recipients". AIDS Reviews. 14 (3): 195–207. PMID 22833063.
  13. ^ "L'Hiv esclude il trapianto?". 6 October 2001.
  14. ^ http://www.npsitalia.net/?p=1145
  15. ^ "Visiting Professors, Longmire Visiting Professorship | UCLA Department of Surgery".
  16. ^ https://www.philadelphiamedicine.com/
  17. ^ "Senato.it - Composizione della 12ª Commissione (Igiene e sanita') nella XV Legislatura".
  18. ^ "Senato.it - Composizione della 12ª Commissione (Igiene e sanita') nella XV Legislatura".
  19. ^ "Senato.it - Composizione della Commissione di inchiesta sul Servizio sanitario nazionale nella XVI Legislatura".
  20. ^ "Election setback for Grillo protest party in Italy". BBC News. 28 May 2013.
  21. ^ "Elezioni Comunali 2013, Liste e risultati: Roma". La Repubblica. 10 June 2013. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
  22. ^ "Archives | the Philadelphia Inquirer".
  23. ^ http://www3.weforum.org/docs/AM14/WEF_AM14_PublicFigures_List.pdf
  24. ^ "Marino,Fondazione Roma per fund raising - Lazio".
  25. ^ Pianigiani, Gaia (2014-10-23). "Unable to Marry Gay Couples, Some Italian Mayors Rebel". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-11-11.
  26. ^ "The Holy See cracks down on leaks about its scandalous finances". The Economist. 7 November 2015. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  27. ^ https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/10/07/world/europe/ap-eu-italy-rome-mayor.html
  28. ^ "Rome and Philadelphia make medical history".
  29. ^ Roth, Alvin E.; Marino, Ignazio R.; Ekwenna, Obi; Dunn, Ty B.; Paloyo, Siegfredo R.; Tan, Miguel; Correa‐Rotter, Ricardo; Kuhr, Christian S.; Marsh, Christopher L.; Ortiz, Jorge; Testa, Giuliano; Sindhwani, Puneet; Segev, Dorry L.; Rogers, Jeffrey; Punch, Jeffrey D.; Forbes, Rachel C.; Zimmerman, Michael A.; Ellis, Matthew J.; Rege, Aparna; Basagoitia, Laura; Krawiec, Kimberly D.; Rees, Michael A. (2020). "Global kidney exchange should expand wisely". Transplant International. 33 (9): 985–988. doi:10.1111/tri.13656. PMID 32430941. S2CID 218760100.
  30. ^ Roth, Alvin E.; Marino, Ignazio R.; Ekwenna, Obi; Dunn, Ty B.; Paloyo, Siegfredo R.; Tan, Miguel; Correa‐Rotter, Ricardo; Kuhr, Christian S.; Marsh, Christopher L.; Ortiz, Jorge; Testa, Giuliano; Sindhwani, Puneet; Segev, Dorry L.; Rogers, Jeffrey; Punch, Jeffrey D.; Forbes, Rachel C.; Zimmerman, Michael A.; Ellis, Matthew J.; Rege, Aparna; Basagoitia, Laura; Krawiec, Kimberly D.; Rees, Michael A. (2020). "Global kidney exchange should expand wisely". Transplant International. 33 (9): 985–988. doi:10.1111/tri.13656. PMID 32430941. S2CID 218760100.
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