We lost Professor Giancarlo Comi yesterday. Together with the Italian MS Society and its Foundation, he made an enduring impact on multiple sclerosis research and treatment.

A pioneer of early diagnosis and treatment in multiple sclerosis, he championed the involvement of people with MS in research. «We will carry on your legacy and continue the work you started. Thank you, Giancarlo, from all of us, especially those living with multiple sclerosis,» says Mario Alberto Battaglia, President of the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation and President of the Italian MS Foundation. 

For many years, Giancarlo Comi has been a member of the FISM Board of Directors. He helped us understand and select the best projects to support, guiding our scientific research on multiple sclerosis in the most effective way.

Born in Carvico - Italy on December 15, 1947, Giancarlo Comi was one of those scientists who truly made their mark on the history of multiple sclerosis research and treatment. He authored over 1000 scientific paper published in the most prestigious international journals and edited numerous scientific books. He organized and spoke at more than 600 scientific conferences all over the world.

A true pioneer

Starting in the mid-1980s, he played a key role in opening up new perspectives for multiple sclerosis. He promoted the introduction of magnetic resonance imaging and the development of new diagnostic techniques, understanding and explaining the importance of early diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Moreover, he always took action. He was among the first in Italy to purchase, with the support of the Italian MS Society, a magnetic resonance imaging machine dedicated to research in the Institute of Neurology at San Raffaele, Milan, which he directed until a few years ago.

A life dedicated to research

Comi has led the MS Center at San Raffaele Hospital from its creation. Since 2004, he has been the Director of the Institute of Experimental Neurology (INSPE), which he founded at San Raffaele Hospital. From 2008 to 2018, he was the Director of the Department of Neurology. He was personally involved in countless clinical trials to discover new drugs. If today we have about 20 of them, compared to only interferon and glatiramer at the end of the 1990s, it is thanks to scientists like Comi, to their insatiable desire to improve our understanding and treatment of multiple sclerosis.

He was a visionary and a competent, passionate scientist and a great communicator, able to explain even the most complex aspects of research to anyone he interacted with. He has always been an open-minded researcher, convinced that only by working together with the best researchers in the world, the international associations of people with multiple sclerosis, and all stakeholders, including industry and regulatory authorities, the necessary answers could be found. As Paola Zaratin, Director of Scientific Research at FISM, recalls, «He taught us to always believe in what we do. For many of us, he was not just a mentor, but a guide and a friend.»

Professor Comi received numerous prestigious awards both nationally and internationally. In 2015, he was the first Italian to be awarded the Charcot Prize, an honor that places him among the world's leading experts on the disease. In 2018, he was appointed Officer of the Italian Republic by the President Sergio Mattarella. Moreover, his leadership of the European Charcot Foundation since 2013 has made him a point of reference at the European level.

He strongly supported the creation of the International Progressive MS Alliance, an initiative that brought together the best researchers, people with MS, trusts, foundations and the industry with the common goal of finding effective new therapies for progressive multiple sclerosis. In 2015, he was co-chair of the PMSA Scientific Committee. Thanks to his work and that of many others, we have made significant progress in understanding and treating the progressive forms of multiple sclerosis. 

People with multiple sclerosis  starting point and ultimate goal

Professor Comi also championed participatory science models, emphasizing the importance of patient input in research through programs like MULTI-ACT project and the PROMS Initiative, which he joined from the beginning with the International MS Federation and the Italian MS foundation.  

«We were together on November 20th, last Wednesday, at the beginning of the Charcot Foundation Congress» says Mario Alberto Battaglia. «Giancarlo, together with Paola Zaratin, organized the PROMS initiative meeting, and stressed once again that "people with MS are the most important, they must guide research with researchers and clinicians" towards what the patient really needs. We have travelled a long road since 1986, when Rita Levi Montalcini and I came to S. Raffaele Hospital for the opening of the Multiple Sclerosis Center. We developed together research and care, built the Italian MS Centers community, brought italian research of excellence worldwide, raised young Italian researchers who are now among the best in the world. Together we worked for better health services models and fought for the rights of people involved in the disease, the right to health and the right to a life beyond the condition of multiple sclerosis. We are grateful to you, Giancarlo, for this excting journey we made side by side, we are grateful because together we concretely built a different future for people with MS. I will miss you, we will all miss you, we will miss discussing about vision and strategy, we will miss the friendship and committment that has always tied us together».