Nicoletta Sacchi on Research Goals
  Nicoletta Sacchi     Biography    
Recorded: 08 Jun 2004

In the near future in my research would be—I am a cancer geneticist. I would like, I am convinced by studying for twenty years now cancer cells that cancer is an intrinsic to our cells, to our aging. So there is like… aging and thus are intrinsic to life. But I would like to be able if possible with my work to limit the human suffering. You cannot eliminate it but you can manage it. As far as cancer is concerned for example to be able to detect it very early or to prevent as much as possible, retard the onset of this cancer and find rational ways to manage it. I’m not for the life at any cost because I am for the quality of life. So… and this I think I bring also in my work for this reason more than striving for big cure that I think I’m striving more for the prevention and the early detection of cancer. And this would be something if I could do that in the next decade.

Nicoletta Sacchi, Ph.D., is a Professor and Distinguished Member of the Department of Cancer Biology at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York where she has been focusing on gene regulation in cancer cells since 2003. Native to Milan, Italy, she received her Ph.D. from the University of Milan in 1972, followed by postdoctoral work at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, at the Roche Institute of Immunology in Basel under Nobelist Georges Köhler.

In 1982 she came to the United States to continue her postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute. She returned to Italy in 1991 to become an Associate Professor at the University of Milan, until 1997 when she decided to make the US her home. That year she became a Visiting Scientist at Johns Hopkins University.

In 2002 Dr. Sacchi, was named the most cited women scientist and the 18th most cited scientist worldwide That year she received recognition for having the most quoted paper over the 20 year period from 1983 to 2002, "Single-step method of RNA isolation by acid guanidinium thiocyanate phenol chloroform extraction" Analytical Biochemistry 162(1):156-9,1987, which she co-wrote with Piotr Chomczynski.. This article has been cited over 56,000 times as of January, 2008.

Dr. Sacchi has been awarded the EMBO Award (1974 and 1981), the Soroptimist International Award (1976), AIRC Award (1984), the Gianina Gaslini Medal (1989), and the BIOTEC Award (1989.)