Dr. Martino Ruggieri

Martino Ruggieri is Full Professor and Dean of Pediatrics, head of the unit of rare diseases of the nervous system in childhood and director of the postgraduate training program in pediatrics, at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Catania, Italy. He received his BA in History of Modern and Contemporary British Literature at University of Oxford, UK in 1984, his MD at the University of Catania, Italy in 1991 where he also did his residency in Pediatrics (1995), and his PhD in Pediatric Sciences (Universities of Catania, Italy and Oxford, UK, 2000).

Dr. Ruggieri trained as a clinical assistant and research fellow in clinical genetics and pediatric neurology at the Oxford University Hospitals/OUH (1995-2000) and at the Massachusetts General Hospital/MGH, Harvard University, Boston, USA (1995). His fields of interest and research are pediatric neurology, neurocutaneous disorders, mosaic skin and nervous system disorders, complex malformation syndromes of the nervous system, immune-mediated disorders of the nervous system in childhood, and history of medicine. He has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and he is editor of several books including “Neurocutaneous Disorders: Phakomatoses and Hamartoneoplastic syndromes” and “Immune-mediated Disorders of the Nervous System in Childhood” as well as journals (Journal of Brachial Plexus, Peripheral Nervous System Injuries, Child’s Nervous System, The Child).

Dr. Ruggieri is currently President of the Italian Pediatric Neuroimmunology Study Group, scientific coordinator of the Italian National Neurofibromatosis, Tuberous Sclerosis and Sturge-Weber Groups and founding member of the International Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Study Group. Two complex malformation syndromes bear his name: a) one with “cutis tricolor” (Ruggieri-Happle syndrome) (b) the other with mixed/paired vascular nevi (Ruggieri-Leech syndrome).