PROFILE

Irene Gullo, MD, PhD is a Board Certified Pathologist at the Department of Anatomic Pathology - Unidade Local de Saúde São João (ULSSJ), Assistant Professor of Anatomic Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP) and Integrated Researcher at RISE-HEALTH (FMUP). She obtained her Master degree in Medicine (MD) from the University of Genoa (Italy) in 2013 with a final classification of 110/110 cum laude and receiving a "merit medal”. She obtained her PhD degree in Molecular and Oncology Medicine in 2019, integrating prestigious research teams at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto and i3S (Portugal). Her doctoral research focused on the pathogenesis, morphology, immunophenotypic characteristics and molecular heterogeneity of gastric carcinoma. Her current research aims to deepen the understanding of the pathogenesis and molecular pathology of gastric carcinoma, both in the sporadic and hereditary context. She has a particular interest in gastric carcinoma related to Epstein-Barr virus infection and microsatellite instability, as well as gastric precursor lesions, including those arising in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis and Lynch syndrome. Additionally, she specialises in Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer (HDGC), one of the main hereditary syndromes affecting the stomach. In 2019, she joined the International Gastric Cancer Linkage Consortium and has since participated in the updating of the HDGC clinical management guidelines. She obtained the degree of Specialist in Pathology in 2020, obtaining a final classification of 19.57/20. Her areas of interest include gastrointestinal, liver and pancreatobiliary pathology. She had the opportunity to attend fellowships on gastrointestinal, liver and pancreatobiliary pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (NYC, USA), Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, USA), Heidelberg University Hospital (Germany) and Koç University Hospital (Istanbul, Turkey). Recently, she joined the faculty of pathologists delivering the European School of Pathology (EScoP) course on Gastrointestinal Pathology. Additionally, she is part of the steering committee responsible for the development and validation of FGFR2b staining in gastric cancer at European level. She is co-author of approximately 60 publications in indexed peer-reviewed journals, with over 1200 citations and an h-index of 19 (Scopus 2024). She also co-authored the chapter on Gastric Dysplasia in the upcoming 6th edition of the WHO Classification of Tumours on Digestive System Tumours.