Giampiero Girolomoni: “I was captivated by the ambitious goals of the DocTIS project”
DocTIS is an EU-funded research collaboration uniting top institutions from Europe and the US to advance treatment for six major immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. Its goal is to identify and validate more effective, targeted therapies through a systems biology approach. The diseases studied include Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis.
At the core of this collaboration is a commitment to understanding disease mechanisms and translating them into new clinical strategies. Among the key partners is the University of Verona, renowned for its excellence in teaching, research, and innovation. With 22,000 students and 1,500 academic and support staff, the university plays a strategic role in DocTIS. It contributed to defining clinical criteria for retrospective patient selection (targeting individuals with differential responses to treatment) and was actively involved in the preclinical and clinical validation of combinatorial therapies.
Leading the University of Verona’s contribution is Giampiero Girolomoni, head of the Dermatology Section in the Department of Medicine. We spoke with him about his role in DocTIS, his vision for the project, and the future of IMID care.
Hi. Giampiero! Please, tell us about yourself.
Ciao! I am Giampiero Girolomoni, professor of Dermatology and head of the Dermatology Section in the Department of Medicine at the University of Verona, Italy. Previously, I was director of the Laboratory of Immunology and director of the Department of Clinical Dermatology at the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata in Rome, Italy. In the late 1980s, I was a research fellow and visiting instructor in the Department of Dermatology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, Texas, USA.
I graduated in Medicine from the University of Modena, Italy. My scientific interests include medical dermatology, immunodermatology, and the immunology and immunopharmacology of inflammatory skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis and psoriasis.
What initially drew you to the DocTIS project?
I was informed about the DocTis project at the very beginning by Prof. Carlos Ferrándiz from Barcelona, then I was captivated by the multidisciplinary approach to immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, the relevance of the groups involved in the project and the ambitious goals of the project.
What role does your organization play in the DocTIS project?
Our role is to study patients with psoriasis, a common disorder affecting 2-3% of the global population. Psoriasis is frequently associated with psoriatic arthritis and, less commonly, with inflammatory bowel diseases. The primary goal was to identify biomarkers linked to treatment response.
The clinical trials have already started, what are your expectations?
The completion of the clinical trial was a very significant achievement, as it translated a number of biological and pre-clinical results into clinical practice, which then acquired meaningful medical relevance. Psoriasis patients were not included in the clinical trial because modern biological treatments with drugs blocking cytokines pathways involved in psoriasis pathogenesis (e.g., IL-17 and IL-23) are very successful in the vast majority of patients. Indeed, most patients achieve at least 90% improvement in clinical severity. Since these treatments have emerged and become available in recent years, there is no need to perform combinatorial therapies to induce disease remission and maintain disease control in these patients.
How do you think DocTIS could help improve the quality of life for IMID patients in Europe?
DocTIS brings together different medical specialties who have to do with distinct immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. These disorders share pathogenetic pathways as well as treatment strategies. The interactions among different specialists are very important for transferring and then adapting more precise and effective treatments to patients.
What key learnings do you take from the DocTIS collaboration?
The multidisciplinary discussions around the data and the different aspects addressed (clinical, lab research, bioinformatics, and clinical trials) at the same table ensured a broad and comprehensive approach, which is a strong point of DocTIS.
Is there anything about the team you would like to highlight?
II would like to thank the project coordinator, Prof Sara Marsal, Head of the Rheumatology Department and Scientific. Director of the Rheumatology Research Group at VHIR, for her continuous strength and relentless efforts to carry on the project, as well her patience with partners. Also, a big thank you to partner Zabala Innovation, which performed extraordinary work for the success of the projects.
Coordinated by the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), the DocTIS consortium includes Cardiff University, the University of Verona, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), the National Center for Genomic Analysis (CNAG), IMIDomics Inc., HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, and Zabala Innovation.
