Nicola Bizzaro, MD, was educated at the Medical School of the University of Padua (Italy). He completed his residence training in Clinical and Laboratory Hematology and subsequently in Clinical Pathology at the Padua University. After a 7-year experience in the Dept. of Internal Medicine and in the Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion Service, in 1986 Dr Bizzaro moved to the Dept. of Laboratory Medicine at the S.Donà di Piave Hospital (Venice), where he served as a Head of the Hematology, Coagulation, Immunology, and Allergology units. He undertook advanced training in Immunopathology as a visiting scientist at the Central Laboratory of the Netherland Blood Transfusion Service, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from 1984 to 1998 (discontinually). Currently he is Head and Medical Director of the Laboratory of Clinical Pathology and Head of the Diagnostic Department at Gemona del Friuli and Tolmezzo Hospitals, Italy. Dr Bizzaro is the chairman of the Italian Society of Laboratory Working Group on Autoimmune Diseases, is a member of the Italian Association for Autoimmune Research and a founder-member of the Italian Interdisciplinary Forum for the Research in Autoimmune Diseases.