Guido Pozza M.D.: a visionary scholar

Excerpt

Guido Pozza was born in Milano on March 26th 1928 and passed away peacefully surrounded by his family on November 21st 2018. He obtained his MD from the University of Milano in 1951, at a very young age of 23 and soon after in 1955 he went to the University of Chicago to work and study as a post-doctoral fellow with Prof. Piero Foa’, to investigate mechanisms of pancreatic endocrine secretion employing the model of crossed circulation in dogs as well as various forms of pancreatic extracts. These were the limited and very basic “tools of the trade” at the time, pancreatic extraction and cross-circulation between animals [1, 2]. Chicago was a big and dangerous town, and especially the area around the University Hospital was potentially so and he said that you had to keep your eyes open. Beside these dangers, he was enthusiastic of that period in the USA and had considered staying at the University of Chicago, but then decided to come back to Italy because of the failing health of his parents. As planes were very expensive he went and came back by ship. In Milano, he started his own research lab in the Granelli building in the Policlinico, located in Via Francesco Sforza. His experimental work at the time focused on in vitro studies of glucose metabolism in adipose tissue. As a clinician at the time he also had an interest in hematology [3], but soon decided to dedicate himself primarily to the study of diabetes and obesity. …