On Wednesday 29 April at 4 pm, in the Aula Absidale di Santa Lucia (Via de’ Chiari 25/a, Bologna), Professor Shin'ya Yamanaka will receive an honorary PhD degree in Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences.
Admission is free, with online registration required, and the ceremony will also be streamed live on the University of Bologna's YouTube channel.
Shin'ya Yamanaka is one of the world's foremost authorities in the fields of cell biology and medicine. His research pioneered an “ethical model” of somatic stem cells derived for the first time without recourse to embryos, a breakthrough that has opened new avenues for the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of genetic, degenerative, inflammatory and traumatic conditions.
The academic ceremony will open with an address by the Rector of the University of Bologna, Giovanni Molari, followed by contributions from Professor Nicola Baldini — who nominated Professor Yamanaka for the honorary PhD — and from the Head of the Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, Professor Paolo Pillastrini. The reading of the award citation and the presentation of Professor Yamanaka’s academic record will be followed by the conferral of the honorary PhD diploma and his lectio magistralis.
The ceremony will close with the presentation of diplomas to four new Emeritus Professors: Giuseppe Caia, Andrea Contin, Lorenzo Donatiello and Roberto Tuberosa.
The honorary PhD citation
The conferral of an honorary PhD degree in Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences upon Professor Yamanaka recognises his exceptional contribution to overturning the dogma of irreversibility in the mechanisms governing cell differentiation, opening new perspectives for the development of advanced and personalised therapies.
His pioneering research has demonstrated that it is possible to reprogramme somatic cells taken from the same individual, yielding immature cells capable of differentiating into any cell type and endowed with unlimited proliferative capacity. These cells, which display functional characteristics very similar to those of embryonic stem cells, were designated by Professor Yamanaka as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
Nearly two decades after their introduction, iPSCs are now a cornerstone in both basic research and precision and regenerative medicine, with applications already in clinical trials across fields including neurological, ophthalmological, musculoskeletal and rare diseases.
About Shin'ya Yamanaka
Professor Shin’ya Yamanaka is Emeritus Director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University, and Senior Investigator and L.K. Whittier Foundation Investigator in Stem Cell Biology at the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease (GICD). He also serves as President of the Public Interest Incorporated Foundation, CiRA Foundation.
His scientific interests took shape during his years of orthopaedic specialist training and his active engagement in sport, driven by a desire to deepen his understanding of tissue repair and regeneration mechanisms. Following his landmark discovery of iPSCs, he has received numerous international accolades, including the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded in 2012 jointly with Dr John Gurdon.
His vision is to help defeat a range of diseases through innovative iPSC-based therapeutic approaches and their derivatives, offering new models for disease understanding, drug discovery and regenerative medicine.
