Prof. Giovanni Li Volti

Prof. Giovanni Li Volti is Full Professor of Biochemistry at the Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences (School of Medicine), University of Catania (Italy). He earned his MD and PhD  from the University of Catania.

He is President of the Center for Advanced Preclinical in vivo Research (CAPiR) and Director of the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR), where he leads research programmes dedicated to advancing scientific evidence in support of harm-reduction strategies in public health. Since 2019, he has also served as the Rector’s Delegate for Biomedical Research.

His research focuses on the biochemical mechanisms of cigarette toxicity across experimental models, smoking-related respiratory disease, tobacco harm reduction, and the health effects of novel nicotine and tobacco products. He has served as Principal Investigator of the REPLICA project, a multicentre ring study designed to replicate key scientific evidence comparing conventional cigarettes with electronic nicotine delivery systems. Since 2019, his team has conducted pioneering preclinical and translational research on electronic cigarettes and related technologies, and was the first worldwide to publish a comparative toxicological assessment of cigarettes and a heated tobacco product using a 3D human cornea model.