Ariberto Fassati graduated in Medicine at the University of Milan, Italy, in 1991 and is a board certified neurologist. He obtained a PhD from UMDS Guy’s Hospital, London, in 1997 on gene therapy for neuromuscular diseases and was awarded a Wellcome Trust Prize International fellowship to work with Steve Goff at Columbia University, New York. Dr. Fassati returned to the UK in 1999 to work in Robin Weiss’s group at UCL, he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Career Development fellowship in 2000 and a Wellcome Trust University Award in 2004. He is a Reader (tenured Associate Professor) in Cellular & Molecular Virology and the Director of the Wohl Virion Centre at UCL.

Ari Fassati has worked on neuromuscular diseases, developing new diagnostic methods and exploiting retroviral vectors to target muscle stem cells for gene therapy of muscular dystrophies. Since his visit to the US, Ari Fassati’s research efforts have focused on the basic aspects of HIV-1 and other retroviruses replication and in using retroviruses to discover new cellular pathways. He is also interested in the molecular mechanisms underpinning the regression of the canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT), which is characterized by cellular transmission.

Ari Fassati is an Associate Editor of Retrovirology and a faculty member of Faculty1000 Medicine.