Napoleone Ferrara, M.D. earned his medical degree at the University of Catania Medical School in Italy and completed his postdoctoral research at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Ferrara serves as a Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Pathology in the UC San Diego School of Medicine as well as Senior Deputy Director for Basic Science at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.

In February 2013, Dr. Ferrara was named one of 11 recipients of the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. He was recognized for his work identifying the role of VEGF in promoting angiogenesis – the formation of new blood vessels that can feed tumor growth – and subsequent development of two major monoclonal antibody drugs: Bevacizumab (marketed as Avastin), which is used to treat multiple forms of cancer, including breast, brain and colorectal, and ranibizumab (marketed as Lucentis), which treats wet age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.

Dr. Ferrara was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. He has also won numerous other awards, including the General Motors Cancer Research Award (2006), the ASCO Science of Oncology Award (2007), the Pezcoller Foundation/AACR International Award (2009), the Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (2010), the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research (2011), The Economist’s Innovation Award for bioscience, (2012) and the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2014.