Pasquale Strazzullo is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Unit of Internal Medicine, Hypertension and Cardiovascular Prevention at Federico II University of Naples Medical School. He graduated in 1973 and completed his training as an endocrinologist in 1977 and as an internist in 1982. He was Research Fellow at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1993-94 and at the Harvard Medical School in the B&WH Endocrine/ Hypertension Division in 1988. Since 2001 he holds the chair of Internal Medicine at the University of Naples Medical School where he teaches in the Graduate Course of Medicine and Surgery, in the Graduate Course of Nursing and in the Post-graduate School of Internal Medicine. He is director of the University Master in Arterial Hypertension. Prof. Strazzullo's broad area of interest is the study of the metabolic bases of cardiovascular diseases and the role of nutrition in cardiovascular prevention. His more recent scientific activity has focused mainly on the analysis of population genetic variation in biological systems relevant to salt-sensitivity of blood pressure and to the pathogenesis of obesity-associated hypertension. He is author of over 200 scientific publications in international peer-review scientific Journals, textbooks and Congress Proceedings. He is member of numerous national and international scientific societies. Besides coordinating the scientific activities of the Olivetti Heart Study, he is scientific coordinator of multicenter clinical research projects of high national interest funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, research consultant at the National Research Council Institute of Food Science in Avellino and collaborates to the Wandsword Heart and Stroke Study and to the Stroke Prevention Project in West Africa at the University of Warwick, UK. He has served in the editorial boards of several scientific journals and is presently co-editor of Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease, edited by Elsevier.