Ilaria Capua

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Ilaria Capua, 2013

Ilaria Capua (born April 21, 1966 in Rome ) is an Italian virologist and former politician. She is known for her research on flu viruses, particularly the avian flu virus H5N1 . Today she lives and works in the USA .

Live and act

Ilaria Capua studied veterinary medicine in Perugia . According to her own statements, she chose the subject not offered in Rome in order to move out with her parents. As a veterinarian, she specialized in viruses that are transmitted from animals to humans.

In 1999 Capua took over the management of an institute in Padua . Here in 2006 she succeeded in deciphering the African variant of the currently circulating Influenza A virus H5N1, which can trigger the H5N1 bird flu . Because of the scandalous procedure by the World Health Organization (WHO) to exclusively make such data available to 20 leading laboratories worldwide, they finally published the data on the Internet. Capua received a sharp reprimand from the WHO and was attacked for disregarding this custom. After 5 years, however, the WHO completely changed its attitude in this regard, expanded the public accessibility of virulent data and even celebrated this paradigm shift in 2020.

The expanded institute in Capua received various awards. In 2008, the American science magazine Seed added her to their list of Revolutionary Minds for taking a leadership role in sharing research worldwide.

In the parliamentary elections in Italy in 2013 , she was elected to the parliament for Mario Monti's citizens' list . In 2016 she resigned and moved her research to the USA. There she heads the One Health Center of Excellence at the University of Florida (as of June 2020), which works with an integrative concept and researches the health of humans, animals and the environment in context. According to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, one reason for the move was criminal investigations into alleged corruption, misuse of office space and illegal trade in viruses that had been initiated against Capua after the 2013 election. A prosecutor accused them of trafficking in viruses, forming a criminal organization and causing an epidemic. She was facing life imprisonment. In 2016, the case against them was dropped because the allegations had proven to be baseless. The daily La Repubblica described these investigations in 2020 as “surreal” and emphasized that Capua emerged from the proceedings “flawlessly”, i.e. completely exonerated.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy , she was switched on as a sought-after expert on Italian television.

Publications

The literature and citation database Web of Science identifies Ilaria Capua as the author or co-author of over 230 scientific articles with an h-index of 45 (as of April 2020).

Frequently cited articles (selection)

  • Ilaria Capua, Dennis J. Alexander: Avian influenza: recent developments . In: Avian Pathology . tape 33 , no. 4 , August 2004, p. 393-404 , doi : 10.1080 / 03079450410001724085 .
  • J. Banks, ES Speidel, E. Moore, L. Plowright, A. Piccirillo, I. Capua, P. Cordioli, A. Fioretti, DJ Alexander: Changes in the haemagglutinin and the neuraminidase genes prior to the emergence of highly pathogenic H7N1 avian influenza viruses in Italy . In: Archives of Virology . tape 146 , no. 5 , May 29, 2001, p. 963-973 , doi : 10.1007 / s007050170128 .
  • Hongquan Wan, Erin M. Sorrell, Haichen Song, Md Jaber Hossain, Gloria Ramirez-Nieto, Isabella Monne, James Stevens, Giovanni Cattoli, Ilaria Capua, Li-Mei Chen, Ruben O. Donis, Julia Busch, James C. Paulson, Christy Brockwell, Richard Webby, Jorge Blanco, Mohammad Q. Al-Natour, Daniel R. Perez, Matthew Baylis: Replication and Transmission of H9N2 Influenza Viruses in Ferrets: Evaluation of Pandemic Potential . In: PLOS ONE . tape 3 , 8, article no. e2923, August 13, 2008, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0002923 .

Web links

Commons : Ilaria Capua  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Curriculum vitae and list of publications on ufl.edu , June 2017, accessed on April 4, 2020 (English; PDF).
  2. ↑ a b c d Marc Zollinger: Ilaria Capua is the virologist who explains the coronavirus to Italians. It is honest, clear - and does not shy away from civil disobedience. In: nzz.ch . April 3, 2020, accessed April 4, 2020 .
  3. ^ A b Riccardo Luna: La sfida (all'estero) di due italiani al virus cinese. In: repubblica.it . January 27, 2020, accessed April 4, 2020 (Italian).
  4. ^ Ilaria Capua | Chartwell Speakers. Retrieved April 16, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c Ulrike Sauer: Later fame. In: sueddeutsche.de . April 14, 2020, accessed April 16, 2020 .
  6. ^ Web of Science. Thomson Reuters , accessed on April 18, 2020 (English, result of a literature search for author Capua I * ).
personal data
SURNAME Capua, Ilaria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian virologist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH April 21, 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome