Graziella Pellegrini

Graziella Pellegrini (born July 12, 1961) is an Italian Professor of Cell Biology and the Cell Therapy Program Coordinator at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She has developed and championed cell therapy protocols in hospitals across Italy.

Early life and education Pellegrini was born in Genoa. She studied molecular pharmacology at the University of Genoa, where she earned her PhD in 1988. Pellegrini completed extra training to become a pharmacist. She is best known for her work in translational medicine, and has developed epithelial stem cell mediated cell and gene therapies. She has worked with Michele de Luca for most of her academic career. In 1990 Pellegrini established the first urethral stem cell cultures for humans, which could be used to regenerate the urethra in patients with posterior hypospadias.

She showed that the p63 transcription factor, a homologue of P53 that is essential for regenerative proliferation in the development of epithelial cells, can distinguish human keratinocyte cells from their transient amplifying keratinocyte analogues. The identification of this marker is important in the clinical application of epithelial cultures for cell therapy. This involved transplanting autologous epidermis flaps from epidermal stem cells that had been genetically corrected. She demonstrated the first successful clinical trial to treat junctional epidermolysis bullosa. For the following two years, Pellegrini and De Luca observed initial stem cell patients, when it became obvious that they could scale the technology.

In 2008 Pellegrini and De Luca co-founded the Holostem Terapie Avanzate, a biotechnology spin-out that develops advanced therapy producers that use epithelial stem cell cultures. They developed a culture system that creates limbal stem cell for the regeneration of corneas, which can restore vision to patients ocular burns who are deemed incurable. This system, Holoclar, was recognised by the European Medicines Agency in 2008, and received its approval for marketing from the European Commission in 2015. Holoclar is the first stem cell based medicinal product to be approved by the European Commission.

In 2020 Graziella Pellegrini and Michele De Luca, shared the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine for the development of epithelial stem cell-based regenerative therapy in patients with severe eye and skin disease.

Pellegrini provides expert opinion for the World Economic Forum.