Elisa Vicenzi and Guido Poli

Elisa Vicenzi and Guido Poli are united in life and by the passion for scientific research which began, after their respective degrees in Pharmacy (Vicenzi) and Medicine and Surgery (Poli) at the University of Ferrara, first at the "Mario Negri" Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan until 1986, then at NIAID, NIH in Bethesda until 1993 where Vicenzi specialized in the study of the molecular virology of HIV, the causative agent of AIDS, while Poli focused on the role of cytokines in regulating the latency and replication of the virus. Back in Italy, in 1994 they founded the AIDS Immunopathogenesis Unit at the newborn DIBIT of the IRCCS San Raffaele in Milan; following the SARS epidemic (2003) Vicenzi specialized in research on emerging viruses and has been promoted to Head of the "Viral Pathogens and Biosecurity" Research Unit. In 2021 the Research Unit was redefined "Viral Pathogenesis and Biosafety" (Vicenzi) while Poli was appointed Head of the "H.I.V. - Human Immunovirology ". To their credit they have hundreds of publications and two books as Publishers dedicated to HIV research methodologies ("Human Retroviruses. Methods and Protocols", 2013 and "HIV Reservoirs. Methods and Protocols", 2022).