De Luca, a native of Maglie in Southern Italy, began by talking about his home and his early education in the classics. He showed slides of Maglie and the surrounding towns, which he said were interestingly all historically independent - while the residents of Maglie speak an Italian dialect, residents of other nearby towns could speak dialects based on ancient Greek. De Luca talked about the education he received in his town's school, where he began learning Latin at age 11 and Greek at 14. Education in the classics was considered to be the foundation of studies in both the humanities and the sciences. De Luca said that studying classics was the facilitator of his ability to "ask questions, argue and reach conclusions."
After attending the Collegio Capece of Maglie and earning his Ph.D. at the Institute of Biological Chemistry at the University of Pavia, De Luca moved to the United States to work at MIT. His scientific interest and research have been in the differentiation of epithelial tissues, particuarly into the use of retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A, to prevent cancerous growth. He has published 200 scientific articles, and now works at the NIH's National Cancer Institute. His recent work has been on the development of a method delivering retinoic acid to lung tissue through inhalation, in an effort to prevent or treat lung cancer.
In the last three years, De Luca has returned to studying the classics in earnest as a graduate student at the University of Maryland. De Luca explained that he loves the classics partly because of the call of his ancestry and homeland, but also because it allows him to belong to a "special club which does not fear to distinguish itself." He will continue his Latin studies through the Ph.D. program of Kings College in London, possibly writing his dissertation on the Roman poet Ovid.
Story and picture by Caroline O'Shea '07.
