Geneticists say Boncinelli's passing is a grave loss for the community.

The disappearance of Edoardo Boncinelli "it represents a serious loss for the scientific community Italian and international, which loses a point of reference for rigor, clarity and intellectual courage". This is the comment of Paolo Gasparini, president of SIGU, Italian Society of human genetics on the disappearance of the geneticist which occurred yesterday in Milan. "We hope that Dado, as we called Edoardo, even if he is not more present among us remains for a long time, with his publications, his writings and his example as a beacon for new generations of geneticists," concludes Gasparini. In 1985 Boncinelli, together with collaborators such as Antonio Simeone, discovered the so-called 'architect genes', homeotic genes that direct the structural development of the human body, a discovery of great importance historical in modern biology.