Role
Head of the Neuroscience Department and the National Animal Encephalopathy Center of the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Piedmont, Liguria and Valle d'Aosta
Bio
After graduating in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Turin, she specialized in Food Inspection of Animal Origin at the same university. She subsequently earned a PhD in Comparative Veterinary Pathology from the University of Milan. In 1990, she joined the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Piedmont, Liguria, and Valle d'Aosta as a veterinarian in the Department of General Diagnostics. Nine years later, she became head of the Histopathology Laboratory at the same institute. Since 2001, she has been responsible for the National Reference Center for Animal Encephalopathies (pursuant to the decree of August 3, 1991), and in 2005, also for the Neuropathology and Genetics area. In 2009, she was appointed Health Director of the entire Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Piedmont, Liguria, and Valle d'Aosta. In 2012 she was appointed Acting General Director of the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Piedmont, Liguria and Valle d'Aosta, and since the beginning of 2016 she has been the Institute's General Director.
Maria Caramelli is one of the world's leading experts on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as "mad cow" disease. She and her team work on the detection of different strains, i.e., previously unidentified forms of the disease. In Turin, one in particular, called BASE, typical of older cattle, was discovered, originating from a prion likely more aggressive and virulent than BSE. She has recently become involved in other food safety issues, including, for example, the "strange case" of blue mozzarella, the European racehorse lasagna scandal, wild boar contaminated with Cesium-137, and the problem of hepatitis A in frozen berries.