“Discovery is to see what everyone else has seen and to think what no one else has thought.” Those words from 1937 Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent Györgyi enjoy a prominent place in the office of Alessio Fasano, the director of the Mucosal Biology Research Center (MBRC) at the School of Medicine and founder of the Center for Celiac Research, which is housed in the MBRC in Health Sciences Facility II.

That sense of discovery, plus rigorous discipline, a little serendipity, and a large dose of luck, is what Fasano—a pediatric gastroenterologist and professor of pediatrics, medicine, and physiology at the School of Medicine—credits with guiding him to some remarkable discoveries and accomplishments.

Fasano moved to Baltimore from Naples, Italy, in 1993 with a scholarship to the School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development. In 2000, Fasano and his colleagues discovered zonulin, a protein that regulates the permeability of the intestine.

In 2004, Fasano and Blake Paterson, MD, founded Alba Therapeutics Corporation, now headquartered at the UMB BioPark, to transfer the zonulin technology from the lab’s bench top to the patient’s bedside. Fasano resigned as interim chief scientific officer to return to academics full-time. He is now chair of the company’s scientific advisory board.

Technology developments from Fasano’s laboratory have resulted in more than 150 patents now held by Alba Therapeutics. The company, named the Maryland Incubator Company of the Year in 2006, has completed clinical and human trials of AT-1001, its lead compound. AT-1001 is targeted toward the treatment of celiac disease and other autoimmune illnesses.