Dr. Gianfranco Alpini earned his B.S. in 1976 from Terenzio Mamiani, Rome, Italy. He went on to earn his Ph.D. from the University of Rome in 1984. Following this, he completed postdoctoral work at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, Albert Einstein Yeshiva University in New York, and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
In 2019, Alpini began his career at the Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) when he joined the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology as the director of the Indiana Center for Liver Research (ICLR) and the inaugural John B. Hickam Professor of Medicine.
His research focuses on the regulation of cholangiocyte proliferation/damage during cholangiopathies. He has expertise in the areas of factors that regulate hepatic/cell mitosis and apoptosis, in particular the regulation of the balance of proliferation and apoptosis by bile acids, neurotransmitters, gastrointestinal hormones, and angiogenic factors. In addition, he has expertise in epithelial transport mechanisms and regulation of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) expressions, including microRNA and transcribed ultra-conserved regions (T-UCRs), in hepatobiliary cancers and stem cells, particularly how aberrant ncRNA expression contributes to the evasiveness of the cancer stem cells and resistance to chemotherapy.
Alpini has been recognized on the national level with numerous awards and honors throughout his decades-long career. He earned the Takeda Award from the American Physiological Society and the Research and Development Award from the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. He is also a fellow of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the American Gastroenterology Association.