Mario Ramberg Capecchi (born October 6, 1937) is an Italian-American molecular geneticist who shared the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies. He was honored for developing a method to create mice without a specific gene, known as knockout mice. Currently, he is a Distinguished Professor in Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

Life

Mario Capecchi was born in Verona, Italy, as the only child of Luciano Capecchi and Lucy Ramberg. Lucy Ramberg was born in Italy to an American-born Impressionist painter named Lucy Dodd Ramberg and a German archaeologist named Walter Ramberg. Mario’s parents were not married, and because of the difficult times in Europe during World War II, little is known about his early life. In 1941, Mario and his mother were living near Bolzano, about 160 miles north of his father in Reggio Emilia. His mother was arrested and sent away for distributing leaflets and being part of an anti-Fascist group. Before her arrest, she sold her belongings and gave the money to a nearby family to care for her son. Soon after, Mario ended up on the streets of Bolzano. In July 1942, a few months before his fifth birthday, Italian records suggest Mario was reunited with his father in Reggio Emilia. Mario confirmed this, but he said he only stayed with his father briefly and mostly lived on the streets until he was placed in an orphanage near the end of the war.

Mario nearly died from not having enough food. His mother survived the war in Germany, and after the war ended, she spent a year searching for him. She found him on his ninth birthday in a hospital bed in Reggio Emilia, where he was sick with a fever and eating only a daily bowl of chicory coffee and bread crust. She took him to Rome, where he had his first bath since leaving her care. With help from his uncle, Edward Ramberg, an American physicist at RCA, they arranged to move to the United States. Mario and his mother settled in Pennsylvania at a community called Bryn Gweled, which was co-founded by his uncle. His other maternal uncle, Walter Ramberg, was also a well-known American physicist. Mario graduated from George School, a Quaker boarding school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1956.

Mario earned his Bachelor of Science in chemistry and physics in 1961 from Antioch College in Ohio. He went to MIT as a graduate student to study physics and mathematics. However, during his studies, he became interested in molecular biology because he preferred working with small groups of scientists and doing experiments that did not need large machines. He then moved to Harvard to join the lab of James D. Watson, who helped discover the structure of DNA. Mario received his PhD in biophysics in 1967 from Harvard University, completing his thesis under Watson’s guidance.

From 1967 to 1969, Mario was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University’s Society of Fellows. In 1969, he became an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Harvard Medical School and was promoted to associate professor in 1971. In 1973, he joined the faculty at the University of Utah. Since 1988, Mario has also been an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has spoken at Duke University’s Program in Genetics and Genomics as part of their Distinguished Lecturer Series. He was the speaker for the 2010 Racker Lectures in Biology & Medicine and the Cornell Distinguished Lecture in Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University. He is also a member of the Italy-USA Foundation.

After the Nobel committee announced that Mario had won the Nobel Prize, an Austrian woman named Marlene Bonelli claimed to be his long-lost half-sister. In May 2008, Mario met Bonelli, then 69 years old, in Northern Italy, and confirmed that she was his sister.

Knockout mice

Capecchi was given the Nobel Prize for developing a knockout mouse. A knockout mouse is a special type of mouse made using genetic changes and lab techniques to create embryos. In this mouse, one specific gene is turned off. For this work, Capecchi received the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, along with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies, who also helped with the research.

Capecchi also studied the mouse Hox gene family in detail. These genes are important for controlling how embryos develop in all animals with many cells. They help guide the correct order of cell growth along the body’s length, from the head to the tail.

Honors

• 1969 – Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry
• 1992 – Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research
• 1993 – Gairdner Foundation International Award for Achievements in Medical Sciences
• 1993 – Gairdner Foundation International Award
• 1994 – General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize
• 1996 – Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences
• 1996 – German Molecular Bioanalytics Prize
• 1997 – Franklin Medal for Advancing Our Knowledge of the Physical Sciences
• 1998 – Feodor Lynen Lectureship
• 1998 – Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence
• 1998 – Baxter Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences
• 1999 – Helen Lowe Bamberger Colby and John E. Bamberger Presidential Endowed Chair in the University of Utah Health Sciences Center
• 2000 – Lectureship in the Life Sciences for the Collège de France
• 2000 – Horace Mann Distinguished Alumni Award, Antioch College
• 2000 – Italian Premio Phoenix-Anni Verdi for Genetics Research Award
• 2001 – Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, co-winner with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies
• 2001 – Spanish Jiménez-Díaz Prize
• 2001 – Pioneers of Progress Award
• 2001 – National Medal of Science
• 2002 – John Scott Medal Award
• 2002 – Massry Prize from the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California
• 2003 – Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research
• 2002–2003 – Wolf Prize in Medicine
• 2005 – March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology
• 2007 – Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award for Biotechnology and Medicine
• 2007 – Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, co-winner with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies
• 2008 – American Heart Association Distinguished Scientist Award
• 2011 – Cátedra Santiago Grisolía Prize, Valencia, Spain
• 2011 – Mike Hogg Award, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
• 2012 – UCSF medal
• 2012 – Honorary Doctorate Degree, University of Bologna Medical School, Italy
• 2013 – Honorary Doctorate Degree, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
• 2013 – Honorary Doctorate Degree, Ben-Gurion University, Israel
• 2013 – Trinity College Historical Society Gold Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Public Discourse, Dublin, Ireland
• 2014 – Keynote Speaker at the Congress of Future Medical Leaders
• 2015 – American Association for Cancer Research Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2017 – ISTT Prize from the International Society for Transgenic Technologies
• 2024 – Honorary Doctorate Degree, Yale University, United States