Riccardo Polosa

Riccardo Polosa (born in July 1961 in Catania) is an Italian respiratory physician. According to a paper published in ''BMC Public Health'', he is the most prolific author in the field of electronic cigarettes, as of 2014. "Full Professor of Internal Medicine and specialist of Respiratory Diseases and Clinical Immunology at the University of Catania as well as the Founder and Clinical Director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Scientific Director of the Center of Excellence for the acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) at the same University."  His research interests center on asthma, COPD, respiratory diseases, smoking-related diseases, smoking prevention and cessation, tobacco harm reduction, and new tobacco products. Since 2009, his research team has been involved in studies on the impact of e-cigarettes, and they were the first in the world to publish a randomized controlled trial on e-cigarettes.

The focus of his academic research has been historically centered upon the investigation of mechanisms of inflammation, biomarkers of disease activity, and novel drug target discovery in the area of respiratory medicine (asthma, COPD, rhinitis) and clinical immunology (allergic and autoimmune diseases). This has culminated with the participation of his research group in large EU funded pan-european research consortia (Unbiased BIOmarkers for the PREDiction of Respiratory Disease Outcome -U-BIOPRED; Airway Disease Predicting Outcomes through Patient Specific Computational Modelling – AIRPROM; Integral Rheumatology & Immunology Specialists Network – IRIS). Provided by Wikipedia