Acknowledgements: Andrea Ortone, a PhD student in Biorobotics, receives the Marcello Buiatti 'Lo Stato Vivente della Materia' Degree Prize reserved for degrees from the University of Pisa. Mention for Lorenzo Gaetano Amato, another PhD student of School

Prestigious recognition for two Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna PhD students at the prize in memory of Marcello Buiatti "Lo Stato Vivente della Materia" organised by the University of Pisa and reserved for Master's theses (or single-cycle theses) from the University of Pisa discussed between 10 January 2021 and 28 February 2023.
Andrea Ortone, a PhD student in Biorobotics, received the first prize thanks to his thesis on mathematical models to understand the origin of Parkinson's disease. The study was the result of a collaboration between the BioRobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and the Physics Department of the University of Pisa, and was supervised by researcher Alberto Mazzoni and Prof. Riccardo Mannella. Horton is currently pursuing his training and research within the Neuro-Robotic Touch Laboratory coordinated by Prof. Calogero Oddo.

Among the theses deserving special mention is Lorenzo Gaetano Amato's thesis on the study of mathematical models for predicting Alzheimer's disease. In this case too, the research supervisors are Mazzoni and Mannella. In order to explore the topics related to his study in greater depth, Lorenzo Gaetano Amato began collaborating with the Computational Neuroengineering Laboratory of the BioRobotics Institute coordinated by Mazzoni. 

The legacy of Marcello Buiatti

Marcello Buiatti complemented his experimental work with in-depth theoretical research into the origins and peculiarities of living beings, well summarised by the title of one of his books, 'The Living State of Matter', from which the prize is taken. This vision led him to interact, as a biologist, with scholars from other disciplines (physics, mathematics, computer science, philosophy, neuroscience, etc.) and to be one of the driving forces behind the 'Vito Volterra' Theoretical Biology Group at the University of Pisa (one of the first interdisciplinary working groups in Italy), from which the Centro Interdipartimentale per lo Studio dei Sistemi Complessi (CISSC) was later born.