Giuseppe Procino, Ph. D., is an Associate Professor of Physiology in the Department of Bioscience, Biotechnology and Biopharmaceutics, at the University of Bari. He spent two years as a Research Assistant in the Department of Pharmacology, State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA). His main scientific interests are the regulation of transepithelial water and ion transport in the renal tubule, the gut and the peritoneal membrane. He recently focused on sympathetic regulation of renal function, having identified, for the first time, the beta-3 adrenergic receptor in the renal tubule. He also investigates the functional role of the AQP1 water channel in peritoneal dialysis and used 3D culture models of mesothelium for biocompatible dialysis solutions. He has developed a co-culture system of human intestinal cells with an air-liquid interface for investigating the physio-pathological responses to exposure to gut microbiota.