Professor of Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.

Francesco Puppo, MD is full Professor of Internal Medicine and specialist in Allergology, Clinical Immunology, and Hematology at the University of Genoa School of Medicine. Past Head of the Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology Unit at San Martino Hospital, Genoa, Italy. His research and clinical interests are focused on autoimmune and connective tissue disease with particular attention to patients affected by systemic sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus associated with interstitial lung diseases. He is member of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and of the steering committee of the Italian Networks of systemic sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus patients. Moreover, he is involved in research on immunoregulatory functions of human histocompatibility HLA-G antigens and participated as invited speaker on all International Conferences on this topic. He published about 250 papers on peer reviewed journals and was Editor of two Books: “Pulmonary Vascular Disorders” and “Interstitial Lung Disease: from diagnosis to treatment”. Prof. Puppo is involved in the Global Project Genome for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (Principal Investigator University of Denver, Colorado, USA).