Mario U Mondelli, MD PhD FRCP FESCMID, is Professor of Infectious Diseases at Pavia University and Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy. He is also Director of the Postgraduate School of Infectious and Tropical Diseases of the University of Pavia and responsible for the Infectious Diseases classes for undergraduates taught in English (Harvey Course, University of Pavia). After graduating in Medicine summa cum laude in 1978 at the University of Milan, he spent 4 years in London as a Research Fellow and Honorary Registrar at the Liver Unit of King's College Hospital and in the United States where he worked as Visiting Research Fellow and Research Associate for more than 2 years at the Scripps Research Institute of la Jolla, California. He received his PhD from the University of Pavia in 1988 upon his return from the US. He served the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) as Secretary General from 1995 to 1997 and the Journal of Hepatology as Associate Editor and subsequently as Co-Editor between 1999 and 2009. He was also Associate Editor of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation (2010-2014) and Editor-in-Chief of Liver International (2014-2019). He was member of the EASL Ethics Committee from 2011 to 2014 and Chairman of the United European Gastroenterology (UEG) in 2000. He is Past President of the International Association for the Study of the Liver (IASL), and has been President of the Infectious Diseases Section of the European Union of Medical Specialists from 2009 to 2015. He is also Past President of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Study Group of Viral Hepatitis. He has been awarded the ESCMID Fellowship in 2017. He is Deputy Scientific Director of Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico san Matteo. He is the recipient of the prestigious EASL Recognition Award in 2018. His research activity over the years has been characterized by a strong personal involvement in laboratory science (clinican virology and immunology in particular), together with clinical management of patients, moving from bench to bedside and back again. Prof. Mondelli has a longstanding tradition of clinical and translational research on viral hepatitis which is evident from several research articles published in the field. Specific research interests include the role of innate immunity in the control of HBV and HCV, the NK cell receptor dynamic profiles as biomarkers of response to antiviral therapy, the behaviour of immune responses during antiviral treatment, and the production of neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies specific for HBV. Recent research interests also include primary liver cancer immunotherapy. He is listed as co-inventor in a patent of a human monoclonal antibody to the HCV NS3 helicase/NTPase domain and as sole inventor in a recently released patent on a human monoclonal antibody specific for the HBV envelope protein with potent neutralizing activity. Very recently prof. Mondelli’s interests focused on the immunopathogenesis of COVID-19 and innate and adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2.