Luca Steardo - Biography#

Graduated in Medicine, he got specialization in Neurology and successively in Pharmacology. He is Full Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy at the University of Rome SAPIENZA.

Prof. Steardo has carried out part of his research activity in USA at NIH Bethesda MD, at the Harvard Medical School, and successively at Oxford University as visiting scientist. He has been NIH consultant and member of the WHO – World Psychiatry Association Task Force for the study of anxiolytics.

Prof. Steardo collaborates with several preeminent scientific laboratories in Europe and in the States (e.g., Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders, the Scripps Institute - La Jolla, CA; Departments of Pharmacology and Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine; laboratory of Neurology, The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School - Boston, MA; Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders (TARGID), University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Faculty of Life Sciences, The University of Manchester, UK).

His experimental activity has been mainly devoted to investigate the functional role of some neuropeptides in the central nervous system and their interaction with classical neurotransmitters, as well as to study the effects of psychoactive drugs on neuroendocrine systems.

In the last years, his scientific interest has been addressed on the understanding the molecular mechanisms implicated into abuse and eating disorders.

Moreover, at present, his research effort is focused on exploring the role of neuroglia in neuropsychiatric diseases, as well as the role of enteroglia in gut-brain axis.

Author of more than 150 publications in impacted international journals. He is editor of a book (published in the WHO Expert Series on Neuroscience), member of the editorial board of highly impacted scientific journal s, as well as referee for many international journals. He is member of many International Scientific Societies.