Fernando Pitossi graduated as a Biochemist at the University of Buenos Aires in 1988. He next moved to the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland, where he identified and cloned protein kinase B (Akt). A year later, he started his PhD in molecular virology on the molecular mechanisms of the antiviral action of interferons at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He later finished his PhD, at the University at Freiburg, Germany in 1993. For the next four years he worked as a research scientist at the Department of Immunophysiology at the University of Marburg, Germany, studying the interactions between the immune and the central nervous system. During this period, he studied the generation and use of recombinant adenoviral vectors as vehicles for gene transfer in the brain with Prof. Mallet in Paris and gained expertise in inflammation research with Daniel Anthony and Hugh Perry in Oxford, U.K. In 1997, he returned to Argentina and established himself as a research associate before becoming the group leader of the laboratory of Neuroimmunomodulation and Gene Therapy at the Institute Leloir Foundation in 2000. His current interests in research are focused on the functional role of pro-inflammatory immune cytokines on neurodegeneration, neuroprotection and stem cell biology. His group is collaborating with Prof. W. Oertel (Clinic of Neurology, Marburg, Germany), Dr. U. Eisel (University of Struttgart, Germany), Dr. D. Anthony and H. Perry (University of Southampton, U.K.). He serves as the advisor of the Argentinean Food and Drug Administration on clinical trials using recombinant DNA, and is a member of several study sections at the Society for Neuroscience, International Cytokine Society, Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research and European Cytokine Society. Pitossi has received several national and international grants from organizations such as Volkswagen Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst.