IN MEMORIAM
Vincenzo Tagliasco
Years ago, in his office at the University of Genoa
in Italy, Vincenzo said I would have to accomplish the
task of writing on him some day, as due by any good
fellow to his master professor. He was dramatically
right in his prediction. Here I am — making an effort
to perform what I consider an impossible mission —
namely, summarize my sentiments as well as the
scientific community’s debt to Vincenzo Tagliasco.
Given his many-faceted rare personality, well known
by his colleagues throughout the world, I can only
express a few emotions and perceptions while writ-
ing about my direct experiences with him from a
human and scientific point of view, not necessarily
in the correct temporal sequence. This write-up is
intended to summarize, as succinctly and elo-
quently as possibly, my feelings and my profound
esteem for Vincenzo Tagliasco. Here, I mention him
simply by his first name and surname. After death, it
is no longer necessary to identify a person by his
academic or official title, such as Doctor or Profes-
sor. Death, one may say, is an event in life that
equates all human beings in the face of what may be
considered a mystery by itself and a mystery
beyond.
As far as I can remember I first met Vincenzo when
I was a student at the Engineering School of the
University of Genoa in 1972. What impressed me at
the very start was his enthusiastic approach to life,
particularly with regard to initiating and establish-
ing relationships with young students. He would
encourage them to embark on the most ambitious
task for a human being, namely to utilize their
‘‘fresh’’ brains to tackle the problem of extending
some frontiers of the existing fund of knowledge —
not merely as a curiosity-driven process but as some-
thing capable of yielding ‘‘value’’ in any possible
form, such as a contribution of a social, economic,
or political nature.
Since then, as testified by his own will to become
a professor of bioengineering, a then non-existing
discipline in Italy, he used his enthusiasm to con-
vince people that the new knowledge acquired by
research would achieve its culmination only if
employed to generate ‘‘value’’.
The second thing that impressed me was his
immense trust in his co-workers. He would mention
several researchers at the most prestigious interna-
tional meetings in order to promote their names
while assigning himself a secondary position. The
incredible result was that many of his national
and international colleagues were mentioned in
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Devel-
opment (OECD) and European Union (EU) tables
dealing with research, development and innovation.
The third outstanding feature was his ‘‘maniacal’’
professionalism, as manifested by the painstaking
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (2008) 44, 77—78
http://www.intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/aiim
0933-3657/$ — see front matter
doi:10.1016/j.artmed.2008.08.005