Dr. G. Gasparre is a geneticist and member of a worldwide consortium for the annotation of mtDNA variants and the determination of their pathogenicity (MseqDR). He is also co-curator of the Human Mitochondrial Database HmtDB. He has also worked on the catalogue of human NUMTS, and on the use of mtDNA pseudogenes as a phylogenetic marker, exploring and investigating the mtDNA molecule from several point of views, both evolutionary and in diseases, particularly cancer. His research has been funded by the Marie Curie ITN programs of the EU.