Sbarro Health Research Organization Launches International One Health Research Group

New multidisciplinary scientific network brings together leading experts in environmental, animal, and human health to investigate the interconnected determinants of disease and advance prevention.

Philadelphia, PA — September 2026 — The Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO) at Temple University has established an international One Health Research Group dedicated to investigating the complex and increasingly recognized connections between environmental exposure, contamination, public health, animal health, infectious diseases, and antimicrobial resistance.

The initiative reflects a growing scientific understanding that human health cannot be considered independently from the health the ecosystems in whole, with animals, plants. Environmental contaminants, emerging pathogens, climate-related changes, and ecosystem disruption can move across ecosystem boundaries, creating biological and health consequences that may only become apparent after prolonged exposure. Addressing these challenges requires an integrated scientific approach capable of connecting environmental monitoring with veterinary medicine, human medicine, molecular biology, ecology, pathology, epidemiology, pharmacology, and public health. The SHRO One Health Research Group has been conceived precisely within this framework, bringing together an international and multidisciplinary network of scientists, clinicians, veterinarians, researchers, public-health professionals, governmental representatives, and environmental experts with the common objective of understanding how environmental factors influence biological systems and how these effects may ultimately contribute to disease.

The initiative builds upon the scientific experience developed by SHRO and its national and international collaborations, including research focused on environmental contaminants, molecular mechanisms of disease, and the use of animals and wildlife as biological sentinels of environmental exposure. Animals may provide important information about environmental changes because they share ecosystems with humans and can accumulate contaminants through air, water, soil, food, and ecological interactions. Their biological responses may therefore provide early signals of environmental stress and potential risks to human populations.

The One Health Research Group aims to transform this concept into an integrated research strategy in which environmental exposure is investigated together with biological accumulation, molecular alterations, pathological mechanisms, clinical consequences, and population-level outcomes. Rather than considering environmental monitoring and biomedical research as separate scientific activities, the Group will investigate them as interconnected components of the same biological continuum, moving from the identification of environmental hazards to the characterization of their effects at population, community, organism, cellular and molecular levels and, ultimately, to the development of evidence-based strategies for disease prevention.

“One Health is not simply the collaboration of different disciplines; it represents a different way of understanding health itself,” said Prof. Antonio Giordano, President of SHRO. “Human beings, animals, and the environment are part of a single interconnected system. Our responsibility as scientists is to understand these relationships, identify biological consequences at their earliest stages, and translate this knowledge into effective strategies for prevention and public-health protection.”

The new initiative is led by Prof. Antonio Giordano as President, Dr. Canio Martinelli as Vice President, and Prof. Giovanna Liguori as Executive Director, while the position of Secretary General will be appointed. The scientific activities of the Group will be supported by a distinguished Technical-Scientific Committee chaired by Prof. Orlando Paciello, bringing together expertise from biomedical research, veterinary medicine, environmental science, pathology, pharmacology, epidemiology, public health, marine biology, botany, biostatistics, and international health policy. The Committee includes Prof. Andrea Morrione, Deputy Director of the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine; Dr. Renato Lombardi, Director of the Pharmaceutical Department of ASL Foggia; Dr. Roberto Bava, veterinary physician and apiculture expert; Dr. Stefano Ruga, pharmacist and expert in biostatistics and data analysis; Dr. Massimo Lombardi, Head of the Centro di Orientamento Oncologico (COrO), ASL Foggia; Dr. Mosè Alise, Senior Official of the Italian Ministry of Health; Prof. Adriana Basile, Full Professor of General Botany; Dr. Paolo Lauriola, President-Elect of ISDE International, Board Consultant of the European Medical Association, and Board member of the European Public Health Alliance; Prof. Giuseppe Iovane, Director General of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Mezzogiorno; Dr. Clementina Sansone, cell biologist researcher at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples; Dr. Denise Giacomini, EFSA Director at the Italian Ministry of Health in Rome; Dr. Maria Grazia Dente of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità; Dr. Simona Seravesi of the World Health Organization in Copenhagen; Dr. Vito Bochicchio, Director of the Veterinary Prevention Department of ASP Potenza; Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, Founder and President of the One Health Trust and Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University; Prof. Alfonso Baldi, Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Rome Link Campus; Prof. Daniela Massi, Professor of Pathology at the University of Florence, Director of Histopathology and Molecular Diagnostics at Careggi University Hospital, and President of the Italian Melanoma Intergroup; Prof. Pierangelo Geppetti, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Florence and Adjunct Professor at New York University; Prof. Francesco Giorgino, Full Professor of Endocrinology and Director of the Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation, as well as member of Section IV—One Health of the Italian National Health Council; Dr. Christophe Brunet, Marine Biologist at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples; Prof. Francesco de Seta, gynecologist and Associate Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics at San Raffaele University in Milan, Head of the Women’s Health area; Dr. Fedele Dono, neurologist at the “SS. Annunziata” Polyclinic, Head of the Brain Health area; and Prof. Salvatore Cortellino of the Scuola Meridionale.

The composition of the Group should be regarded as a starting point rather than a definitive structure. The Group is intentionally conceived as a dynamic and continuously evolving scientific network, designed to expand its expertise, foster new national and international collaborations, and incorporate emerging research priorities in response to the rapidly changing challenges at the interface of environmental, animal, and human health. New scientists, institutions, and complementary areas of expertise may progressively become part of the network, strengthening its capacity to respond to emerging scientific questions and to develop innovative, multidisciplinary One Health research programs. This evolving structure is an essential feature of the initiative, reflecting the recognition that contemporary health challenges are themselves dynamic and require scientific networks capable of adapting, expanding, and generating new collaborations over time.

The breadth of this scientific network reflects the fundamental philosophy of the initiative: complex health challenges cannot be adequately addressed through isolated disciplines. Environmental contamination, antimicrobial resistance, emerging infectious diseases, cancer, metabolic disorders, chronic inflammatory conditions, and ecosystem degradation are increasingly recognized as interconnected phenomena. The Group will therefore develop collaborative research programs addressing environmental pollution and human health, animal and wildlife sentinel surveillance, environmental epidemiology, antimicrobial resistance, ecosystem and marine health, molecular mechanisms of environmentally associated diseases, biomonitoring, epidemiological modeling, analytical chemistry, pathology, and preventive medicine. Particular attention will be devoted to the investigation of contaminants such as heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, and emerging environmental stressors, to integrate exposure assessment with biological and molecular endpoints. Advanced analytical, pathological, molecular, and epidemiological approaches will be employed to determine not only whether a contaminant is present, but also how exposure affects biological systems and whether specific molecular or pathological alterations may represent early indicators of disease risk.

“The strength of the One Health approach is its ability to connect observations that are traditionally investigated separately,” said Prof. Giovanna Liguori, Executive Director of the SHRO One Health Research Group. “An environmental contaminant, its accumulation in an animal, a molecular alteration, and a clinical outcome may initially appear to represent different scientific questions. By integrating these observations, we can investigate whether they are part of the same biological pathway and generate evidence that can be translated into prevention.”

The Group will also place particular emphasis on the development of sentinel-based biomonitoring strategies, recognizing that animals and ecosystems may provide valuable biological information about environmental pressures affecting human populations. This approach will be combined with molecular pathology, biomarkers, analytical chemistry, epidemiological surveillance, and data analysis to move beyond simple detection toward a mechanistic understanding of environmental risk. The ultimate objective is to establish a translational pathway capable of connecting environmental evidence with biological mechanisms and, ultimately, actionable public-health interventions.

The establishment of the SHRO One Health Research Group represents a further evolution of the Organization’s scientific mission. By integrating biomedical research with environmental and veterinary sciences, SHRO aims to create an international platform in which research questions can be addressed across multiple levels of biological organization, from ecosystems and populations to organs, cells, and molecular pathways. The Group will promote international collaborations, multidisciplinary research projects, pilot studies, scientific publications, educational initiatives, competitive grant applications, and partnerships with universities, research institutions, healthcare organizations, public-health authorities, governmental agencies, and international organizations.

At a time when environmental pollution, antimicrobial resistance, emerging diseases, climate change, and chronic disease are challenging traditional models of public-health research, the new SHRO initiative seeks to provide a framework in which prevention begins before disease becomes clinically evident. Its scientific philosophy is grounded in the recognition that the signals of disease may emerge across the environment, animals, and humans, and that understanding these signals requires scientists to look beyond disciplinary boundaries. There is no sustainable human health without animal health, and there is no human or animal health without a healthy environment. Through the establishment of its One Health Research Group, SHRO seeks to translate this principle into a rigorous scientific program capable of identifying environmental risks earlier, understanding their biological consequences more deeply, and transforming interdisciplinary evidence into innovative strategies for prevention and health protection.

The Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO), based at Temple University in Philadelphia, is dedicated to advancing biomedical research, translational medicine, scientific education, and international scientific collaboration. Founded by Prof. Antonio Giordano, SHRO has developed multidisciplinary research programs in cancer, molecular medicine, genetics, and other major human diseases. The establishment of the One Health Research Group expands this mission toward a broader vision of health in which environmental exposure, animal health, molecular mechanisms, and human disease are investigated as interconnected components of a single biological continuum.