Curnis Flavio Professore AssociatoMedicineBIOS-07/A - Biochimica

Flavio Curnis is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. Born in Bergamo in 1971, he graduated with honors in Biological Sciences from the University of Milan in 1996. He began his research career at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute, first as a student and then as a researcher, collaborating with Professor Angelo Corti for almost thirty years. In 2000, he was a visiting scientist in Renata Pasqualini’s laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, USA, where he studied the use of phage display peptide libraries to identify novel molecular ligands for tumor targeting.

Since 2025, he has coordinated the scientific activities of the Tumor Biology and Vascular Targeting Unit at IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute.

Teaching

From 2002 to 2026, he taught biochemistry, applied biochemistry, and cell biology as an adjunct professor at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University.

Institutional roles

Since 2026, he has served as an academic tutor for first-year students in the Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology Research in Medicine at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University.

Research

F. Curnis’s research focuses on tumor vascular biology and the development of strategies to selectively deliver drugs and diagnostic agents to tumor tissues.

Together with Professor Corti, he made a significant contribution to the preclinical development of NGR-TNF, an engineered protein consisting of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) fused to a peptide containing the NGR motif. This peptide recognizes CD13, which is expressed on tumor blood vessels, and enables the cytokine to be directed to the tumor vasculature. Curnis also contributed to demonstrating that vascular targeting with NGR-TNF can promote the penetration of chemotherapeutic agents into tumors. The antitumor activity of NGR-TNF has been evaluated in more than 1,000 patients in Phase I–III clinical trials. In a Phase II study in patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma, the combination of NGR-TNF and R-CHOP, an immunochemotherapy regimen, showed significant antitumor activity, with complete and durable responses in some patients.

His contributions include discovering the isoDGR motif as an integrin ligand and identifying human chromogranin A receptors, including integrin αvβ6 and neuropilin-1. His current research interests include engineered cytokines, nanomedicines, and peptides targeting integrins αvβ6 and αvβ8 for therapeutic, diagnostic, and theranostic applications in oncology.

Third Mission

F. Curnis is the author of 81 scientific publications and 5 book chapters, and a co-inventor on 12 patent applications in the fields of targeted drug delivery to tumors and the development of diagnostic and theranostic agents. The findings from this research have been advanced through several technology transfer initiatives. For example, NGR-TNF was licensed to MolMed S.p.A., a spin-off of the San Raffaele Scientific Institute. More recently, research programs conducted by F. Curnis and A. Corti contributed to the establishment of Onconyx Therapeutics S.r.l., a startup focused on developing cancer therapeutics based on selective ligands for integrins αvβ6 and αvβ8.

Selected publications

1. Curnis F et al. Enhancement of tumor necrosis factor alpha antitumor immunotherapeutic properties by targeted delivery to aminopeptidase N (CD13). Nature Biotechnology. 2000;18:1185–1190.

2. Curnis F, Sacchi A, Corti A. Improving chemotherapeutic drug penetration in tumors by vascular targeting and barrier alteration. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2002;110:475–482.

3. Curnis F et al. Isoaspartate-glycine-arginine: a new tumor vasculature-targeting motif. Cancer Research. 2008;68:7073–7082.

4. Corti A et al. An αvβ6/αvβ8-targeting peptibody inhibits integrin-dependent TGFβ activation, enables tumor-selective cytotoxic delivery, and synergizes with PD-L1 immune checkpoint blockade. Theranostics. 2026;16(15):8478–8500.