Before medicine, there were questions.

I have been curious since childhood. The old encyclopaedia my father kept at home was my favourite pastime, and it was there that the habit of asking for the cause of things was born. While other boys dreamed of becoming Formula 1 drivers or astronauts, I wanted to be a scientist, or a philosopher. Medicine was where that curiosity found its purpose.

In medical school, the brain chose me before I chose it. From the first years I trained in neurosurgery. Then I found psychiatry, and philosophy won in the end: I made neuroscience a constant companion, and the mind became the centre of my work, the place where body, history and decision meet.

From Socrates, Plato and Aristotle I inherited a refusal to accept something simply because it is so. Socrates’ Apology was the first book that marked me, while I was still a boy. In its final paragraph Socrates leaves a request about his own sons, and I had the impression he was speaking to me. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky came later, and taught me about human nature what no textbook teaches.

After medical school, the restlessness continued. I went on to study psychiatry, neuroscience and genetics, and found a challenge that brought all of it together: longevity. In it I discovered a medicine that measures every point and sees potential in every detail.

In practice, that habit becomes a method. The same symptom can have many origins: a discreet deficiency, a metabolism that has changed, hormones, a genetic variation, epigenetics, the mind itself. There is almost always more than one cause at once. Bringing the pieces together, giving an exact name to what is happening and choosing the treatment with precision is what gives my work its meaning.

Outside it there are books, in a library that grows slowly, and sport. I practise muay thai and tennis, and I follow athletes closely. The body at high performance teaches a great deal about limits and precision.

I am married, and my marriage is among the things I hold most dear. I have Christian and family values that shape how I live and how I care for others. I believe that following someone over many years asks for the same as a good marriage: presence, constancy and truth.