Ilaria Capua
Born
Rome
CitizenshipItalian
Alma materUniversity of Perugia,
Padua University
Known forpolitics, virologist,
avian influenza
Scientific career
InstitutionsIstituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie,
University of Florida

Ilaria Capua (born 21 April 1966 in Rome) is an Italian virologist and former politician, best known for her research on influenza viruses, particularly avian influenza, and her efforts promoting open access to genetic information on emerging viruses as part of pre-pandemic preparedness efforts.

Capua is currently a professor at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Science (IFAS), and has a joint appointment with the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Public Health and Health Professions at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, U.S. She was recruited to direct and lead the UF One Health Center of Excellence in research and training.[1]

A veterinarian by training, Capua has mainly worked in the field of veterinary virology and zoonotic viral infections.[2]

She worked for over twenty years in the network of the Istituti Zooprofilattici in Italy, and headed the national and international reference laboratory for Newcastle disease and Avian Influenza at IZSVE for over ten years. In response to the 1999-2000 outbreak of avian flu in Italy, Capua and colleagues proposed and developed a novel strategy for vaccinating commercial poultry against the disease, which was adopted and enabled the industry to avoid a complete shutdown.

In February 2006, Capua drew international attention when she challenged the existing system for granting scientists access to genetic material sequenced from influenza viruses.[3] At the peak of the H5N1 panzootic, Capua decided to post the sequence of the first H5N1 African virus on a publicly accessible website (GenBank) rather than contribute the data to a password-protected database maintained in Los Alamos and accessible only to a small group of researchers.[3]

During this time, Capua led an international campaign promoting free access to genetic sequences derived from influenza viruses and other viruses with pandemic potential.[4][5][6][7][8] One observer described Capua as "belonging to a longstanding tradition of scientists rebelling against established ideas and the upper echelon among their colleagues" but also advocating a new outlook in which scientific cooperation is "enacted directly between scientists and not mediated by institutions."[9]

Biography

Training

Born in Rome in 1966, Ilaria Capua graduated with honors in veterinary medicine from the University of Perugia in 1989.[10] In 1991, she completed a post-graduate specialization course in animal health and hygiene at the University of Pisa.[10] She obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Padua in 2007 on avian influenza epidemiology, inter-species transmission and control.[11]

Scientific activities

Prior to joining the Italian Parliament, Capua served as director of the Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences for the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IZSVe), Legnaro in Padua.[1] The department is home to the National FAO/OIE Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease, and is the OIE Collaborating Centre for Diseases at the Animal/Human Interface.

In 1999-2000, responding to a persistent but relatively non-virulent strain of H7N1 avian flu hindering Italy’s commercial poultry industry, Capua and collaborators developed an innovative approach, which was dubbed the "DIVA" strategy (Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Animals) as a tool to support eradication practices.[2] This DIVA[12] strategy has been invented and developed already years earlier for the eradication of herpesviruses.[13][14] The strategy involved inoculating poultry with an inactivated vaccine derived from an antigenically related H7N3 virus—coupled with a diagnostic test directed to identifying antibodies to the neuraminidase antigen, that revealed whether avian-flu antibodies present in a subject animal were caused by the H7N3 vaccine or by the field H7N1 virus.[2] Once approved by the European Union, the program went live in November 2000.[2] The strategy enabled Italy’s poultry industry to continue trade and the target pathogen was eradicated from Italy.[10][15] Today, DIVA is among the strategies recommended by the European Union to combat avian influenza on a global scale.[16]

During the outbreak of panzootic H5N1 influenza, which could be transmitted from birds to people, Capua's lab in Padua received a sample of the viral strain recently introduced in Nigeria for typing and characterization.[3] Capua believed that broader circulation of knowledge related to genetic information on contemporary viruses was essential to improve preparedness and response, and declined the offer to submit the genetic sequence to a password-protected database as suggested by WHO.[3] Instead, she decided to deposit the genetic sequences to GenBank, a publicly accessible database, to make it available to the entire scientific community. On February 16, 2006, Capua contacted about 50 of her colleagues and encouraged them to deposit avian influenza genetic sequences in publicly accessible databases.[17] The journal Science reported on Capua’s effort, stating that she had "renewed the debate about how to balance global health against scientists' needs to publish and countries’ demands for secrecy."[5]

Capua’s initiative was covered by the international press including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post.[3][18][19] The English-language scientific press continued to cover the debate, as did mainstream European press.[20]

Recently, Capua has been coordinator of the workgroup on Avian Influenza of EPIZONE[21] scientific excellence network, which has been set up to improve the control of the epizootic diseases in Europe. It consists of more than 300 researchers from 16 international research centres – two of them outside Europe. Epizone is a new European Commission project under the sixth research framework programme (FP6), priority 5 (food quality and safety), and it has a budget of €14 million over five years.

Today, the WHO, FAO, and OIE promote and support better sharing mechanisms, data transparency, and an interdisciplinary approach to improve preparedness for pandemic events.[5][7][8][22]

Capua has authored and co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, mainly on viral diseases of animals and diseases that can be transmitted from animals to people.[1] She has also co-authored two scientific textbooks concerning influenza and authored four non-fiction books for general readership. Capua also serves on the editorial board of Pathogens and Global Health.

Since June 2016, Capua has been a faculty member with the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, U.S.[1] At UF, she has continued to advocate for interdisciplinary work and open science, particularly open access to research data on pandemic diseases.

In 2021 she raised concerns on gain-of-function experiments.

Personal history

Ilaria Capua is married to a Scotsman, Richard, and has a daughter born in 2004.[23]

Political activities

In January 2013, Capua was asked to run for a seat on the Italian Parliament by Mario Monti, the Italian Prime Minister at the time, who sought to add scientists and academics to Parliament. Capua accepted, and in February 2013 was elected a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, one of the two divisions of the Italian Parliament.[24] Capua served for over two years as vice president of the Commission for Science, Culture, and Education of the Chamber of Deputies.[25]

Ilaria Capua resigned as a member of the Italian Parliament on September 28, 2016. Her resignation speech was published in the first page of Corriere della Sera.[26]

Ilaria Capua

In 2014, while she was a parliamentarian, the Italian weekly magazine l'Espresso revealed that Capua had been the subject of a ten-year criminal investigation by Italian police. The magazine's cover article reported a conspiracy between scientists and pharmaceutical companies to increase the sales of vaccines by deliberately spreading viruses.[27]

In July 2016, Capua was cleared of all charges by the judge for preliminary investigation of the Court of Verona, because "there was no case to answer." The judge's decision mentioned that "there was evidence of fabrication of evidence against her."[28][29][30][31][32]

Works and publications

Books

  • Ilaria Capua, Franco Mutinelli, A Color Atlas and Text on Avian Influenza, Reno, Papi Editore, 2001, ISBN 9788888369006.
  • Ilaria Capua, Idee per diventare veterinario. Prevenire l'influenza aviaria e altre malattie degli animali (Ideas for veterinarians-to-be. Prevention of avian flu and other veterinary diseases), Bologna, Zanichelli, 2007, ISBN 978-88-08-26628-6.
  • Ilaria Capua, Dennis Alexander (Eds), Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease: A Field and Laboratory Manual, Milan, Springer Healthcare Italia S.r.l., 2009, ISBN 978-88-470-0825-0.
  • Ilaria Capua, I virus non aspettano, Avventure, disavventure e riflessioni di una scienziata globetrotter (Viruses do not wait. Adventures, misadventures and reflections of a globetrotting scientist), Venezia, Marsilio, 2012, ISBN 978-88-317-1295-8.
  • Ilaria Capua, l'Abbecedario di Montecitorio: La Camera dei Deputati in un surreale dizionario dalla A alla Z (The Abecedarium of Montecitorio: The Chamber of Deputies in a surreal dictionary from A to Z), Padua, In Edibus, 2016, ISBN 9788897221470
  • Ilaria Capua, Io trafficante di virus (I, the virus trafficker), Rizzoli, 2017, ISBN 978-88-17-09387-3.
  • Ilaria Capua, Circular Health: Empowering the One Health Revolution, EGEA Spa - Bocconi University Press, 2020

Publications

Ilaria Capua's publications in peer-reviewed journals can be found on PubMed.

Honors and awards

  • 2005 - Houghton Trust Award (WVPA)[33]
  • 2006 - ProMED-mail Anniversary Award for Excellence in Outbreak Reporting on the Internet[17]
  • 2007 - Scientific American 50 award by the magazine Scientific American[34]
  • 2008 - Named a "Revolutionary Mind" by the magazine Seed[35]
  • 2009 - "Great Hippocrates Award" from the Italian National Union of Scientific Medical Information[36]
  • 2011 - Penn Vet World Leadership in Animal Health Award from the University of Pennsylvania[37][38]
  • 2012 - Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic[39]
  • 2012 - Gordon Memorial Medal Nottingham[40][41]
  • 2013 - International Prize "Guido Lenghi and Flaviano Magrassi 'from' Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei for biological or clinical virology[42][43]
  • 2014 - Excellence Award 2014 awarded by ESCMID, European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases[44][45]
  • 2017 - International literary prize for Science and Arts, Fondazione PescarAbruzzo[46]
  • 2017 - Schofield Medal University of Guelph[47]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Ilaria Capua - Emerging Pathogens Institute - University of Florida". www.epi.ufl.edu. Archived from the original on 9 May 2018. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Enserink, Martin (10 November 2006). "Italy's Influenza Diva". Science. 314 (5801): 918–919. doi:10.1126/science.314.5801.918. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17095672. S2CID 161378290.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Zamiska, Nicholas. "Scientist Rebels Against WHO Over Bird Flu". WSJ. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  4. ↑ Editorial (16 March 2006). "Dreams of flu data". Nature. 440 (7082): 255–256. Bibcode:2006Natur.440R.255.. doi:10.1038/440255b. PMC 7095490. PMID 16541031.
  5. 1 2 3 Enserink, Martin (3 March 2006). "As H5N1 Keeps Spreading, a Call to Release More Data". Science. 311 (5765): 1224. doi:10.1126/science.311.5765.1224. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 16513948. S2CID 42843113.
  6. ↑ Enserink, Martin (24 August 2006). "CDC Opens Up Flu Archives". Science Magazine. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  7. 1 2 Riddle, John (1 August 2006). "Avian Flu: global sharing of virus samples". FAONewsroom. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  8. 1 2 "OFFLU keeps its pace on global sharing of avian influenza virus samples". World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). 31 July 2006. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  9. ↑ Delfanti, Alessandro (2013). Biohackers: The Politics of Open Science. London: Pluto Press. pp. 108, 97. ISBN 9781849649063.
  10. 1 2 3 "Doctor Ilaria Capua" (PDF). European Commission. February 2006. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  11. ↑ "Ilaria Capua - WVPA". www.wvpa.net. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  12. ↑ van Oirschot J.T., Jan (1999). "Diva vaccines that reduce virus transmission". Journal of Biotechnology. 73 (2–3): 195–205. doi:10.1016/S0168-1656(99)00121-2. PMID 10486928.
  13. ↑ van Oirschot, J.T., H.J. Rziha, P.J.L.M. Moonen, J.M.A. Pol, D. van Zaane, Jan (1986). "Differentiation of serum antibodies from pigs vaccinated or infected with Aujeszky's disease virus by a competitive enzyme immunoassay J. Gen. Virol., 67 (1986), pp. 1179-1182". Journal of General Virology. 67: 1179–1182.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ van Oirschot, A.L.J Gielkens, R.J.M Moormann, A.J.M Berns, Jan (1990). "Marker vaccines, virus protein-specific assays and the control of Aujeszky's disease". Veterinary Microbiology. 23 (1–4): 85–101. doi:10.1016/0378-1135(90)90139-M. PMID 2169682.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ↑ Capua, Ilaria; Marangon, Stefano (16 February 2007). "The use of vaccination to combat multiple introductions of Notifiable Avian Influenza viruses of the H5 and H7 subtypes between 2000 and 2006 in Italy". Vaccine. 25 (27): 4987–4995. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2007.01.113. PMID 17418460.
  16. ↑ "Council Directive 2005/94/EC of 20 December 2005 on Community measures for the control of avian influenza and repealing Directive 92/40/EEC". Official Journal of the European Union. 49F: 16–65. 14 January 2006. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  17. 1 2 "ProMED-mail Anniversary Award for Excellence in Outbreak Reporting on the Internet". ProMed: International Society for Infectious Diseases. 2006. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  18. ↑ "Secret Avian Flu Archive". The New York Times. 15 March 2006. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  19. ↑ Brown, David (25 May 2006). "Bird Flu Fears Ignite Debate on Scientists' Sharing of Data". The Washington Post and Times-Herald. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  20. ↑ Nau, Jean-Yves (10 April 2006). "Appel pour la mise en commun des données sur le H5N1". Le Monde. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  21. ↑ EPIZONE
  22. ↑ Altman, Lawrence K. (21 March 2006). "Health Officials Urge Nations to Report Bird Flu Data Sooner". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  23. ↑ Capua, Ilaria (2017). Io, trafficante di virus - una storia di scienza e di amara giustizia. Rizzoli, Milano: Rizzoli Libri S.p.A. p. 36. ISBN 9788817093873.
  24. ↑ Abbott, Alison (21 February 2013). "Reforms at stake in Italian election". Nature. 494 (7437): 293. Bibcode:2013Natur.494..293A. doi:10.1038/494293a. PMID 23426302.
  25. ↑ "XVII Legislatura - XVII Legislatura - Deputati e Organi - Scheda deputato - CAPUA Ilaria" [XVII Legislature - Deputies and Organs - Member card - CAPUA Ilaria]. Camera dei deputati. 2015. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  26. ↑ Capua, Ilaria (28 September 2016). ""Io, Ilaria Capua, lascio la Camera Questione di rispetto e credibilità" Ecco la lettera di dimissioni". Corriere della Sera. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  27. ↑ Abbate, Lirio (3 April 2014). "Il business segreto della vendita dei virus che coinvolge aziende e trafficanti" [Secret business of the sale of viruses involves companies and traffickers]. L'Espresso. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  28. ↑ Feltri, Mattia (25 June 2017). "Il caso Ilaria Capua: radiografia del suicidio italiano" [The Ilaria Capua case: an X-ray of Italian suicide]. La Stampa. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  29. ↑ Mieli, Paolo (29 May 2016). "Un Paese che detesta la scienza" [A country that hates science]. Corriere della Sera. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  30. ↑ Stella, Gian Antonio (6 July 2016). "Finisce il calvario di Ilaria: Ma ora mi sento sfregiata" [Ilaria's ordeal ends 'But now I feel scarred']. Corriere della Sera. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  31. ↑ Capone, Luciano (7 July 2016). "Gli ozi di Capua del garantismo". Il Foglio. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  32. ↑ Barone, Luca Tancredi (14 July 2016). "Criminal charges against prominent Italian flu scientist dismissed". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aag0662. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  33. ↑ "The Avian Pathology Lecture". Houghton Trust. 2018. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  34. ↑ Choi, Charles Q. (January 2008). "SciAm 50: See-Through Technology and Better Sleep". Scientific American. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  35. ↑ "The Revolutionary Mind of Dr. Capua". ISSNAF - Italian Scientists and Scholars of North American Foundation. 2008. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  36. ↑ "Premio Grande Ippocrate". Unione Nazionale Medico Scientifica Di Informazione. 2018.
  37. ↑ Stratton, Kelly (14 September 2011). "Penn Vet Announces Recipients of World Leadership in Animal Health Award, Student Inspiration Award". Penn Today. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  38. ↑ Larkin, Malinda (14 September 2011). "Award winner recognized for forward thinking". Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA). Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  39. ↑ "Le onorificenze della Repubblica Italiana". Il sito ufficiale della Presidenza della Repubblica. 9 November 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  40. ↑ "Robert Fraser Gordon Memorial Lectures". The United Kingdom Branch of the WPSA. 2012. Archived from the original on 12 April 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  41. ↑ "The WVPA Hall of Honour". The World Veterinary Poultry Association. 2018. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  42. ↑ "Premio della Fondazione "Guido Lenghi e Flaviano Magrassi"" (PDF). Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (in Italian). 21 June 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  43. ↑ Cerati, Francesca (21 June 2013). "L'accademia dei Lincei premia la virologa Ilaria Capua". Il Sole 24 Ore (In Italian). Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  44. ↑ Hoffman; Bartley, Claire; Cathy (12 May 2014). "Scientific excellence award given to a woman for the first time in recognition of her leadership in the field of avian influenza". ESCMID - Press Releases 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2018.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  45. ↑ Bosurgi, Raffaella (July 2014). "Highlights from the 24th ECCMID". The Lancet. 14 (7): 557–558. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(14)70816-3. PMID 25101363.
  46. ↑ "Premio Internazionale NordSud 2017". Fondazione Pescarabruzzo. 11 October 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  47. ↑ "One Health leader presents prestigious Schofield Lecture". The Veterinary Page. 29 November 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
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