Dr. Francesco Boccellato studied at “Sapienza” University of Rome. Since he was a student he was interested in the impact of pathogens in causing cancer in humans. During his PhD in Rome he studied the role of the Epstein Barr virus (EBV) in deregulating microRNAs in diffuse large B cell lymphomas. After his PhD, Francesco moved to Berlin, at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, were he started being interested in the causality of bacterial infection in human cancers. To study the impact of infection on healthy epithelial barriers Francesco invented a new cultivation systems for healthy epithelial cells called the mucosoids. The mucosoids are monolayer of polarised epithelial cells that recapitulate all the functions of an epithelial barrier in the body, including mucus production. In 2019 Francesco has started his independent group in the University of Oxford (UK), at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.