Ferruccio Ritossa

Ferruccio Ritossa (February 25, 1936 – January 9, 2014) was an Italian geneticist best known for his discovery of the heat shock response in the model organism Drosophila (fruit flies).

Early life and education Ritossa was born in the town of Pinguente in Istria in 1936, one of three sons. His father, a butcher, was killed in the foibe killings when Ritossa was a young child. His mother moved the family to Italy and taught school in an orphanage, where her three children were also educated. Ritossa attended the University of Bologna to study agricultural sciences and graduated in 1958.

Heat shock studies Ritossa was interested in the newly emerging field of molecular genetics and began to study the polytene chromosomes found in Drosophila salivary glands. These chromosomes exhibit characteristic changes called "puffs" under certain conditions, now known to reflect activation of transcription. an accidental change in the temperature of a laboratory incubator unexpectedly revealed a distinct "puffing" pattern, and in following up on this serendipitous discovery he found that RNA was reliably and rapidly produced in puffs induced by temperature, later described as "the first known environmental stress acting directly on gene activity". The paper was not initially widely cited. and the identification of heat-shock responses in other organisms, now recognized as a universal response. which now maintains an award for early-career scientists in his honor.

Retirement After retiring from his faculty position, Ritossa moved to a farm near Dozza and became a sculptor. He died on January 9, 2014.