Having trained as haematologist in Italy and in the US (Columbia University), Lucio Luzzatto worked from 1964 to 1974 at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria; from 1974-1981 he was Director of the International Institute of Genetics and Biophysics, CNR, Napoli, Italy; in 1981 he succeeded Sir John Dacie as Professor of Haematology and Director of the Haematology Department at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, University of London, UK; in 1994 he became Professor and founding Chairman of the Department of Human Genetics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York; from 2000 to 2004 he was Scientific Director of the National Institute for Cancer Research, Genova, Italy; from 2005 to 2015 Scientific Director of the Istituto Toscano Tumori, Firenze, Italy; currently he is Professor of Haematology at the Muhimbili University for Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Lucio Luzzatto’s research has been focused on the genetic and molecular basis of blood disorders. Main contributions. (a) Glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD): this was the first human enzyme of which molecular cloning was achieved with M G Persico in 1986. (b) Genetics of haemoglobinopathies and inherited susceptibility to malaria. In 2000 Luzzatto collaborated with M Sadelain to obtain correction of thalassaemia by gene therapy in a pre-clinical mouse model. (c) Pathogenesis, molecular basis and clinical aspects of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH). Lucio Luzzatto and collaborators first proved this was a clonal disorder; subsequently his group identified the underlying biochemical abnormality, and with Bruno Rotoli and others provided the currently accepted model to explain the expansion of PNH clones. Lucio Luzzatto has about 400 publications in learned journals, and several chapters in major textbooks.