Scientific activity

 1. RESEARCH

Most of his research activity was carried out when working at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, i.e., Italian National Institute of Health (ISS) in Rome, Italy. His scientific interests encompass Molecular Biophysics, Radiation Biophysics, Radiation Biology, Radiation Protection, and Radiation Therapy.

He started his research activity in 1967 in the field of biophysics, with a study prepared for his degree in Physics at the Physics Laboratory of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), Rome, It was focussed on the development and use of an original method for size distribution measurement of bacterial populations, as a basic tool for research on dynamics of bacterial populations. After a period devoted to structural studies of biomolecules, his main fields of interest became those related to Radiation Biophysics and Radiobiology.

Structural biophysics

From 1972 Mauro Belli studied the role played by metal ions, particularly Mg++, in bacterial ribosomes using physico-chemical techniques such as light-scattering and ultracentrifugation. Later, he undertook pioneering research on the application of synchrotron radiation for structural analysis of nucleic acids, by X-ray absorption and VUV spectroscopy.

Radiation biophysics/radiobiology

Starting from 1977, Mauro Belli created and led a multidisciplinary research team Istituto Superiore di Sanità  dedicated to studying the relationships between physical characteristics of radiation, DNA damage and cellular effects. This team gained great expertise on the biological effects of charged particles and their implications for radiation protection and radiotherapy (in particular for hadrontherapy).  

In the late 1980s, systematic studies with protons and alpha particles undertaken by his group, in collaboration with the group at INFN-Legnaro (Padova, Italy), and later with the group led by D.T. Goodhead at the Medical Research Council (Didcot, UK), provided experimental evidence that the biological effectiveness—measured in terms of cell killing and mutations—of light ions depends not only on the "linear energy transfer," currently used in Radiation Protection as a descriptor of radiation quality, but also on the ion type. This highlighted the importance of the radiation track structure.

Then, he and his team focused their work on DNA damage caused by radiation of various qualities within the scope of Italian, European, and international (ASI-NASA) programmes. This research demonstrated that different ions can produce DNA fragments of varying lengths depending on the ion, a feature related to the reparability of lesions, and contributed to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of radiation damage in cells.

Subsequently, he directed his research towards the biological effects of ionising radiation at low doses and/or over prolonged exposure (a subject with significant potential implications for radiation protection), focusing on the so-called “non-targeted effects” such as the bystander effect and adaptive responses, using both experimental and modelling methods. Together with his team and various external collaborators, he also investigated the influence of background radiation on living organisms by establishing and utilising the facility for low radiation background environments in the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory of the INFN. This work revealed that cells cultured underground developed traits not seen in cultures kept under standard conditions, suggesting an adaptive role for natural background radiation and paving the way for a series of studies in underground laboratories around the world.

More recently, he has been working on understanding the role of epigenetic effects of ionising radiation, as effects that add to the well-known genetic effects, having relevance especially at low doses.

Mauro Belli has been the project leader of many Italian scientific projects and the scientific responsible for the ISS of various Euratom Projects and of Italian Space Agency-NASA Projects.

Radiation protection

Mauro Belli has been active since 1973 in studies related to various aspects of radiation protection, in particular those related to the use of radiation in medicine, industry and in consumer products. On these aspects, he was an advisor and expert of the Italian Ministry of Health for several decades (1977 through 2009), and has been appointed to many National Committees.

In collaboration with other Italian, Japanese and USA teams, he started in 2000 research related to the protection against space radiation, particularly protons and heavy ions such as Fe+2, in the framework of NASA-ASI (Italian Space Agency) programmes.

In the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident, he contributed to the efforts of the Italian Authorities to face the consequences of the contamination on the Italian territory. After September 11, 2001, he collaborated with these Authorities to identify possible scenarios for terrorist attacks in Italy involving radiation contamination. In 2009, he was also appointed by the Italian Minister of Environment as an advisor for the health protection issues related to nuclear power plants.

He has contributed to the European strategy on the low dose risk research as one of the seven formative members of the ” High-level and Expert group (HLEG) on European low-dose risk research” and co-author of the HLEG Report. He also contributed to the foundation of the European platform known as MELODI (“Multidisciplinary European LOw Dose Initiative”).  Since 2012, he is a member of the MELODI Scientific Advisory Committee.

Radiation Therapy (Hadrontherapy)

He started working in this field in 1994, when the application of accelerated charged particles to cancer therapy started getting a new boost worldwide. As an expert in proton radiobiology, he coordinated the Radiobiology Committee of the TERA (hadrontherapy) Project, led by Prof. U. Amaldi, triggering a large collaboration among many Italian teams and between them and other research groups, especially Japanese. This collaboration studied how the cell lethality induced by protons and carbon ions depends on their linear energy transfer (LET) and on the intrinsic cell radiosensitivity to photons, supporting the advantage of these charged particles in treating tumours radioresistant to conventional photon therapy. He also combined experimental and modelling approaches to evaluate and predict the biological response along the spread-out Bragg peak of a therapeutic proton beam.

2. TEACHING

1969-1970: Assistant Professor at L'Aquila University

1971-1977: Assistant Professor at La Sapienza University (Rome),

1980-82: Professor of Physics at the Perugia University.

2000-2009: Professor of Radiation Biology for post-graduate Courses at the Catholic University (Rome)

2011-2015: Professor of Radiation Biology for post-graduate Course in Medical Physics at the University of Cagliari.  

3. MEMBERSHIPS and COMMITTEES (selection)

-   Member of the Board of the Italian Association for Radiation Protection (AIRP) from 1985 to 1989, Director of the “Bollettino AIRP 1985-89

-   Member Italian Radiation Research Society (SIRR), associated with the International Association on Radiation Research (IARR), from 1988 to 2018, and honorary member from 2018.

-   President of the Italian Radiation Research Society (SIRR) from 1990 to 1993.

-  Co-ordinator Radiobiology Committee of the Italian Project TERA (Hadrontherapy) (1994-1998)

-   Member of the Italian Commission on the problems related to Nuclear Energy appointed by the Italian Minister of Environment (2009-2010)

-  Italian delegate in the Management and Consultative Committee of the EURATOM-Radiation Protection Programme (1978-1985)

-  Italian delegate in the Consultative Committee of the EURATOM-Fission Programme for FP6 and FP7 (2007-2013) Framework Programmes.

-  Member of the User Selection Panel for Interdisciplinary Research of the Legnaro National Laboratory,  Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics.

-   Formative member of the ”High level and Expert group (HLEG) on European low-dose risk research” supported by the European Commission (2008).

-   Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Platform MELODI (“Multidisciplinary European LOw Dose Initiative” (from 2012).

4. AWARDS

   -  “Domenico Marotta Prize” (2004) from the Italian National Academy of Sciences, for his research in Radiobiology of densely ionizing radiation.

    -   “Cavaliere Ordine di merito della Repubblica Italiana” from The President of the Italian Republic (1989).

5. PEER-REVIEWED PAPERS

During his career, Mauro Belli has published about 200 peer-reviewed papers mainly in international scientific journals. He has been or is currently being consulted as Peer Reviewer of: International Journal of Radiation Biology, Radiation Research, Radiation and Environmental Biophysics, Radiation Protection Dosimetry, Advances in Space Research, International Journal Molecular Science, Cancers.