Vincenzo Pirrotta (born 1942) is a biologist known for his work on ''

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' (), from Ancient Greek δρόσος (''drósos''), meaning "dew", and φίλος (''phílos''), meaning "loving", is a genus of fly, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or p ...

'' and polycomb group proteins. Born in

Palermo, Italy Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

, Pirotta migrated to the United States and enrolled at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. While at Harvard, he obtained undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral fellowships in physical chemistry and molecular biology. He later moved to Europe where he began studying gene regulation in

bacteriophage A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a phage (), is a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria. The term is derived . Bacteriophages are composed of proteins that Capsid, encapsulate a DNA or RNA genome, and may have structu ...

s and ''Drosophila'' (fruit flies). He was appointed assistant professor at the

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

in 1972. Pirotta returned to the United States, earning a full professorship at the

Baylor College of Medicine The Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a private medical school in Houston, Texas, United States. Originally as the Baylor University College of Medicine from 1903 to 1969, the college became independent with the current name and has been se ...

in 1992. He then took up the position of professor of zoology at the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public university, public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by French theologian John Calvin as a Theology, theological seminary. It rema ...

in 2002, and in 2004 became a distinguished professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

Research

Pirrotta is known for his genetic work on ''

'' (fruit flies). He primarily studies polycomb group proteins (PcG), which he began studying when he moved to Geneva University. Polycomb group proteins are protein complexes that change the shape of

chromatin Chromatin is a complex of DNA and protein found in eukaryote, eukaryotic cells. The primary function is to package long DNA molecules into more compact, denser structures. This prevents the strands from becoming tangled and also plays important r ...

, which causes heritable phenotypical changes in offspring. They do not cause a change in the DNA sequence. The polycomb group proteins along with the trithorax group () repress and activate Hox genes. Pirrotta studied how response elements of PcG and TrxG effect how the silent and active chromatin are inherited in ''Drosophila melanogaster.'' He has also previously worked on identifying recombinant mutations marked by the hs-neo gene''.''

References

Living people Harvard University alumni 1942 births Scientists from Palermo American biologists American expatriates in Switzerland Academic staff of the University of Basel Academic staff of the University of Geneva Rutgers University faculty Italian expatriates in Switzerland People of Sicilian descent {{US-biologist-stub