Thomas Vaccari joined the Department of Biosciences of the University of Milan in 2017 as an Associate Professor after 7 years as a junior group leader at IFOM, Milan. After graduating in 1997, he completed his doctoral work with Anne Ephrussi at the EMBL in Germany (2003) and later worked as a Postdoc at UC Berkeley in the lab of David Bilder (2004-2009). Research in Thomas’ lab is, or has been, supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research,Telethon Italia, AIRC (Associazione Italiana Ricerca sul Cancro), WCR (Worldwide Cancer Research), Fondazione Cariplo, and EU's Marie Curie programs. Thomas is a founding member of the JEDI (Junior European Drosophila Investigators) network, is part of the board of the European Drosophila Society and of the EMBL alumni, and is an editor of Autophagy, Cells, Scientific Reports and Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.