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Mario Capecchi
Capecchi at a conference in 2013
Born	Mario Ramberg Capecchi (1937-10-06) October 6, 1937 (age 87) Verona, Italy
Nationality	Italian, American
Education	Antioch College Harvard University
Known for	Hox genes in knockout mice
Awards	Kyoto Prize (1996) Franklin Medal (1997) Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2001) Massry Prize (2002) Wolf Prize in Medicine (2002) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2007)
Scientific career
Fields	Genetics
Institutions	Harvard Medical School University of Utah
Thesis	On the Mechanism of Suppression and Polypeptide Chain Initiation (1967)
Doctoral advisor	James D. Watson
Website	capecchi.genetics.utah.edu

Mario Ramberg Capecchi (born 6 October 1937) is an Italian-born molecular geneticist and a co-awardee of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering a method to create mice in which a specific gene is turned off, known as knockout mice. He shared the prize with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

Life

Mario Capecchi was born in Verona, Italy, as the only child of Luciano Capecchi and Lucy Ramberg, an Italian-born daughter of American-born Impressionist painter Lucy Dodd Ramberg and German archaeologist Walter Ramberg. His parents weren't married, and due to the chaos in Europe caused by World War II, the story of his early life is remarkable, but the details are unclear. In 1941 he and his mother were living near Bolzano, about 160 miles north of his father in Reggio Emilia when his mother was arrested and deported for pamphleteering and belonging to an anti-Fascist group. Prior to her arrest she had made contingency plans by selling her belongings and giving the proceeds to a nearby peasant family to care for her child. However, it was not long before Mario ended up on the streets of Bolzano. In July 1942, a few months before his fifth birthday, Italian records suggest he was reunited with his father in Reggio Emilia, which Mario did confirm but stated that he stayed with his father for only for a few brief periods and that he mostly lived on the streets until he was placed in an orphanage towards the end of the war.

Mario almost died of malnutrition. His mother survived the war in Germany (part of the reason the details of his early life are unclear is that she would never talk about her experiences), and when it ended she began a year-long search for him. She finally found him on his ninth birthday in a hospital bed in Reggio Emilia ill with a fever and subsisting on a daily bowl of chicory coffee and bread crust. She took him to Rome, where he had his first bath since he had left her care and where, with money sent by his uncle, Edward Ramberg, an American physicist at RCA, they made arrangements to depart to the United States. He and his mother moved to Pennsylvania to live at an "intentionally cooperative community" called Bryn Gweled, which had been co-founded by his uncle. (Capecchi's other maternal uncle, Walter Ramberg, was also a prominent American physicist). He graduated from George School, a Quaker boarding school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1956.

Capecchi received his Bachelor of Science in chemistry and physics in 1961 from Antioch College in Ohio. Capecchi came to MIT as a graduate student intending to study physics and mathematics, but during the course of his studies, he became interested in molecular biology. His change of interest was driven by the preference of working with few scientists and conducting experiments that did not require the use of big machines. He subsequently transferred to Harvard to join the lab of James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. Capecchi received his PhD in biophysics in 1967 from Harvard University, with his doctoral thesis completed under the tutelage of Watson.

Capecchi was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University from 1967 to 1969. In 1969 he became an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Harvard Medical School. He was promoted to associate professor in 1971. In 1973 he joined the faculty at the University of Utah. Since 1988 Capecchi has also been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has given a talk for Duke University's Program in Genetics and Genomics as part of their Distinguished Lecturer Series. He was the speaker for the 2010 Racker Lectures in Biology & Medicine and Cornell Distinguished Lecture in Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University. He is a member of the Italy-USA Foundation.

After the Nobel committee publicly announced that Capecchi was awarded the Nobel prize, an Austrian woman named Marlene Bonelli claimed that Capecchi was her long-lost half-brother. In May 2008, Capecchi met with Bonelli, then 69, in northern Italy, and confirmed that she was his sister.

Knockout mice

Capecchi was awarded the Nobel prize for creating a knockout mouse. This is a mouse, created by genetic engineering and in vitro fertilization, in which a particular gene has been turned off. For this work, Capecchi was awarded the 2007 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology, along with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies, who also contributed.

Capecchi has also pursued a systematic analysis of the mouse Hox gene family. This gene family plays a key role in the control of embryonic development in all multicellular animals. They determine the placement of cellular development in the proper order along the axis of the body from head to toe.

Honours

• 1969 – Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry
• 1992 – Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research
• 1993 – Gairdner Foundation International Award for Achievements in Medical Sciences
• 1993 – Gairdner Foundation International Award
• 1994 – General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize
• 1996 – Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences
• 1996 – German Molecular Bioanalytics Prize
• 1997 – Franklin Medal for Advancing Our Knowledge of the Physical Sciences
• 1998 – Feodor Lynen Lectureship
• 1998 – Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence
• 1998 – Baxter Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences
• 1999 – Helen Lowe Bamberger Colby and John E. Bamberger Presidential Endowed Chair in the University of Utah Health Sciences Center
• 2000 – Lectureship in the Life Sciences for the Collège de France
• 2000 – Horace Mann Distinguished Alumni Award, Antioch College
• 2000 – Italian Premio Phoenix-Anni Verdi for Genetics Research Award
• 2001 – Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, co-winner with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies
• 2001 – Spanish Jiménez-Diáz Prize
• 2001 – Pioneers of Progress Award
• 2001 – National Medal of Science
• 2002 – John Scott Medal Award
• 2002 – Massry Prize from the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California
• 2003 – Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research
• 2002–2003 – Wolf Prize in Medicine
• 2005 – March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology
• 2007 – Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award for Biotechnology and Medicine
• 2007 – Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, co-winner with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies
• 2008 – American Heart Association Distinguished Scientist Award
• 2011 – Cátedra Santiago Grisolía Prize, Valencia Spain
• 2011 – Mike Hogg Award, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
• 2012 – UCSF medal
• 2012 – Honorary Doctorate Degree, University of Bologna Medical School, Italy
• 2013 – Honorary Doctorate Degree, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
• 2013 – Honorary Doctorate Degree, Ben-Gurion University, Israel
• 2013 – Trinity College Historical Society Gold Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Public Discourse, Dublin Ireland
• 2014 – Keynote Speaker at the Congress of Future Medical Leaders
• 2015 – American Association for Cancer Research Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2017 – ISTT Prize from the International Society for Transgenic Technologies
• 2024 – Honorary Doctorate Degree, Yale University, United States

References

1. Skipper, Magda (2005). "An Interview With Mario Capecchi". Nature Reviews Genetics. 6 (6): 434. doi:10.1038/nrg1647. ISSN 1471-0056. PMID 15934189. S2CID 31781543.
2. Thomas, K. R.; Capecchi, M. R. (1987). "Site-directed mutagenesis by gene targeting in mouse embryo-derived stem cells". Cell. 51 (3): 503–512. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(87)90646-5. PMID 2822260. S2CID 31961262.
3. Mansour, S. L.; Thomas, K. R.; Capecchi, M. R. (1988). "Disruption of the proto-oncogene int-2 in mouse embryo-derived stem cells: A general strategy for targeting mutations to non-selectable genes". Nature. 336 (6197): 348–352. Bibcode:1988Natur.336..348M. doi:10.1038/336348a0. PMID 3194019. S2CID 2997260.
4. Capecchi, M. R. (1980). "High efficiency transformation by direct microinjection of DNA into cultured mammalian cells". Cell. 22 (2 Pt 2): 479–488. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(80)90358-x. PMID 6256082. S2CID 2189404.
5. Chisaka, O.; Capecchi, M. R. (1991). "Regionally restricted developmental defects resulting from targeted disruption of the mouse homeobox gene hox-1.5". Nature. 350 (6318): 473–479. Bibcode:1991Natur.350..473C. doi:10.1038/350473a0. PMID 1673020. S2CID 972118.
6. Thomas, K. R.; Folger, K. R.; Capecchi, M. R. (1986). "High frequency targeting of genes to specific sites in the mammalian genome". Cell. 44 (3): 419–428. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(86)90463-0. PMID 3002636. S2CID 30570106.
7. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2007-10-08.
8. Mario Capecchi publications indexed by Microsoft Academic
9. Kain, K. (2008). "The first transgenic mice: An interview with Mario Capecchi". Disease Models and Mechanisms. 1 (4–5): 197–201. doi:10.1242/dmm.001966. PMC 2590805. PMID 19093023.
10. Cohen-Tannoudji, M. (2007). "Prix Nobel de Médecine 2007". Médecine/Sciences. 23 (12): 1159–1161. doi:10.1051/medsci/200723121159. PMID 18154719.
11. Capecchi, M. (2005). "An Interview with". Nature Reviews Genetics. 6 (6): 434. doi:10.1038/nrg1647. PMID 15934189. S2CID 31781543.
12. Dennis, C. (2004). "Mario Capecchi: From rags to research". Nature. 430 (6995): 10–11. Bibcode:2004Natur.430...10D. doi:10.1038/430010a. PMID 15229575. S2CID 4347862.
13. Lois M. Collins (2007-10-08). "U. scientist Capecchi wins Nobel Prize". Deseret Morning News. Archived from the original on February 20, 2009.
14. Troy Goodman (2001-09-16). "U. scientist Mario Cappechi scores a 'knockout'". Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 2007-10-08.
15. ^ Susan Sample (2007). "Scientist Profile: Mario Capecchi". University of Utah. Archived from the original on 2007-10-11.
16. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
17. Hont G (December 2007). "Från gatubarn till Nobelpristagare. Mario Capecchis liv--en askungesaga" [From street child to Nobel Prize winner. Mario Capecchi's life--a Cinderella story]. Läkartidningen (in Swedish). 104 (51–52): 3905–3907. PMID 18232538.
18. "Nobelist's tales of wartime have inconsistencies". Deseret News. Associated Press. 6 November 2007. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
19. American Philosophical Society. "Edward G. Ramberg Papers". American Philosophical Society.
20. "Obituaries". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2022-06-11.
21. Andrew Gumbel (2007-10-09). "Mario Capecchi: The man who changed our world". Belfast Telegraph.
22. Arkajit Dey (2007-10-16). "Two Nobel Prize Winners MIT-Affiliated". The Tech.
23. Capecchi, Mario (1967). On the Mechanism of Suppression and Polypeptide Chain Initiation (PhD thesis). Harvard University. ProQuest 302261581.
24. "Distinguished Lecture Series". Duke University. Archived from the original on 2007-09-08.
25. "MBG Annual Racker Lecture". Cornell University.
26. Peter Popham (2007-10-18). "Reunion beckons for Nobel winner and his long lost step-sister". Belfast Telegraph.
27. "'Looking at the pictures, it was obviously my sister,' Capecchi said, noting her resemblance to their mother.""Nobel Winner Reunited With Sister Lost in WWII". ABC News. Associated Press. 2008-06-06.
28. University of Utah, Transgenic Mice
29. "2001 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research". Lasker Foundation. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-10-01.
30. "The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details | NSF - National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov.
31. "Past Winners". www.brandeis.edu.
32. "UCSF Medal". Office of the Chancellor. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
33. "Program and Abstracts of the 14th Transgenic Technology Meeting (TT2017): Snowbird Resort, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 1–4 October 2017". Transgenic Research. 26 (S1): 1–45. 2017-09-01. doi:10.1007/s11248-017-0033-2. ISSN 0962-8819. PMID 28864935. S2CID 32962450.
34. "Yale awards nine honorary degrees". YaleNews. 2024-05-20. Retrieved 2024-05-21.

External links

• Howard Hughes Medical Institute biography
• Mario Capecchi's Short Talk: "The Birth of Gene Targeting"
• Mario R. Capecchi on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture on 7 December 2007 Gene Targeting 1977 - Present
• Eccles Institute of Human Genetics biography
• University of Utah biography
• Interviews with Mario Capecchi from Dolan DNA Learning Center's DNA Interactive
• Capecchi animation from Dolan DNA Learning Center's DNA from the Beginning
• Interview with Dr Capecchi Futures in Biotech 63: How To Use A Mouse

v t e Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1901–1925	1901: Emil Behring 1902: Ronald Ross 1903: Niels Finsen 1904: Ivan Pavlov 1905: Robert Koch 1906: Camillo Golgi / Santiago Ramón y Cajal 1907: Alphonse Laveran 1908: Élie Metchnikoff / Paul Ehrlich 1909: Emil Kocher 1910: Albrecht Kossel 1911: Allvar Gullstrand 1912: Alexis Carrel 1913: Charles Richet 1914: Róbert Bárány 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919: Jules Bordet 1920: August Krogh 1921 1922: Archibald Hill / Otto Meyerhof 1923: Frederick Banting / John Macleod 1924: Willem Einthoven 1925
1926–1950	1926: Johannes Fibiger 1927: Julius Wagner-Jauregg 1928: Charles Nicolle 1929: Christiaan Eijkman / Frederick Gowland Hopkins 1930: Karl Landsteiner 1931: Otto Warburg 1932: Charles Scott Sherrington / Edgar Adrian 1933: Thomas Morgan 1934: George Whipple / George Minot / William Murphy 1935: Hans Spemann 1936: Henry Dale / Otto Loewi 1937: Albert Szent-Györgyi 1938: Corneille Heymans 1939: Gerhard Domagk 1940 1941 1942 1943: Henrik Dam / Edward Doisy 1944: Joseph Erlanger / Herbert Gasser 1945: Alexander Fleming / Ernst Chain / Howard Florey 1946: Hermann Muller 1947: Carl Cori / Gerty Cori / Bernardo Houssay 1948: Paul Müller 1949: Walter Hess / António Egas Moniz 1950: Edward Kendall / Tadeusz Reichstein / Philip Hench
1951–1975	1951: Max Theiler 1952: Selman Waksman 1953: Hans Krebs / Fritz Lipmann 1954: John Enders / Thomas Weller / Frederick Robbins 1955: Hugo Theorell 1956: André Cournand / Werner Forssmann / Dickinson W. Richards 1957: Daniel Bovet 1958: George Beadle / Edward Tatum / Joshua Lederberg 1959: Severo Ochoa / Arthur Kornberg 1960: Frank Burnet / Peter Medawar 1961: Georg von Békésy 1962: Francis Crick / James Watson / Maurice Wilkins 1963: John Eccles / Alan Hodgkin / Andrew Huxley 1964: Konrad Bloch / Feodor Lynen 1965: François Jacob / André Lwoff / Jacques Monod 1966: Francis Rous / Charles B. Huggins 1967: Ragnar Granit / Haldan Hartline / George Wald 1968: Robert W. Holley / Har Khorana / Marshall Nirenberg 1969: Max Delbrück / Alfred Hershey / Salvador Luria 1970: Bernard Katz / Ulf von Euler / Julius Axelrod 1971: Earl Sutherland Jr. 1972: Gerald Edelman / Rodney Porter 1973: Karl von Frisch / Konrad Lorenz / Nikolaas Tinbergen 1974: Albert Claude / Christian de Duve / George Palade 1975: David Baltimore / Renato Dulbecco / Howard Temin
1976–2000	1976: Baruch Blumberg / Daniel Gajdusek 1977: Roger Guillemin / Andrew Schally / Rosalyn Yalow 1978: Werner Arber / Daniel Nathans / Hamilton O. Smith 1979: Allan Cormack / Godfrey Hounsfield 1980: Baruj Benacerraf / Jean Dausset / George Snell 1981: Roger Sperry / David H. Hubel / Torsten Wiesel 1982: Sune Bergström / Bengt I. Samuelsson / John Vane 1983: Barbara McClintock 1984: Niels Jerne / Georges Köhler / César Milstein 1985: Michael Brown / Joseph L. Goldstein 1986: Stanley Cohen / Rita Levi-Montalcini 1987: Susumu Tonegawa 1988: James W. Black / Gertrude B. Elion / George H. Hitchings 1989: J. Michael Bishop / Harold E. Varmus 1990: Joseph Murray / E. Donnall Thomas 1991: Erwin Neher / Bert Sakmann 1992: Edmond Fischer / Edwin G. Krebs 1993: Richard J. Roberts / Phillip Sharp 1994: Alfred G. Gilman / Martin Rodbell 1995: Edward B. Lewis / Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard / Eric F. Wieschaus 1996: Peter C. Doherty / Rolf M. Zinkernagel 1997: Stanley B. Prusiner 1998: Robert F. Furchgott / Louis Ignarro / Ferid Murad 1999: Günter Blobel 2000: Arvid Carlsson / Paul Greengard / Eric Kandel
2001–present	2001: Leland H. Hartwell / Tim Hunt / Paul Nurse 2002: Sydney Brenner / H. Robert Horvitz / John E. Sulston 2003: Paul Lauterbur / Peter Mansfield 2004: Richard Axel / Linda B. Buck 2005: Barry Marshall / Robin Warren 2006: Andrew Fire / Craig Mello 2007: Mario Capecchi / Martin Evans / Oliver Smithies 2008: Harald zur Hausen / Luc Montagnier / Françoise Barré-Sinoussi 2009: Elizabeth Blackburn / Carol W. Greider / Jack W. Szostak 2010: Robert G. Edwards 2011: Bruce Beutler / Jules A. Hoffmann / Ralph M. Steinman (posthumously) 2012: John Gurdon / Shinya Yamanaka 2013: James Rothman / Randy Schekman / Thomas C. Südhof 2014: John O'Keefe / May-Britt Moser / Edvard Moser 2015: William C. Campbell / Satoshi Ōmura / Tu Youyou 2016: Yoshinori Ohsumi 2017: Jeffrey C. Hall / Michael Rosbash / Michael W. Young 2018: James P. Allison / Tasuku Honjo 2019: Gregg L. Semenza / Peter J. Ratcliffe / William Kaelin Jr. 2020: Harvey J. Alter / Michael Houghton / Charles M. Rice 2021: David Julius / Ardem Patapoutian 2022: Svante Pääbo 2023: Katalin Karikó / Drew Weissman 2024: Victor Ambros / Gary Ruvkun

• 1937 births
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• Living people
• Scientists from Verona
• American geneticists
• American Nobel laureates
• Antioch College alumni
• Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
• Italian Nobel laureates
• Harvard University alumni
• University of Utah faculty
• Kyoto laureates in Basic Sciences
• Wolf Prize in Medicine laureates
• Scientists from Salt Lake City
• 21st-century Italian inventors
• National Medal of Science laureates
• Howard Hughes Medical Investigators
• Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
• Italian emigrants to the United States
• Homeless people
• Street children
• Massry Prize recipients
• George School alumni
• Members of the National Academy of Medicine
• Recipients of Franklin Medal