Interview with Dr. Giuseppe Barilaro—Winner of JCM 2023 Best Ph.D. Thesis Award

Name: Dr. Giuseppe Barilaro
Affiliations: 1. Department of Autoimmune Diseases, Hospital Clinic, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain;
2. Department of Internal Medicine, Sant’Eugenio Hospital, Rome, Italy.

Dr. Giuseppe Barilaro presently works in the internal medicine department of the Sant’Eugenio Hospital in Rome. Besides his daily clinical activity (focusing on autoimmune diseases), he is working on several research projects started in recent years. He has so far published more than 30 articles in international indexed journals and several book chapters. The following is our interview with him.

1. How does it feel to receive this recognition for your work?
It's a big satisfaction after bringing up your own project and your research idea that comes to a result and you can publish it, and receiving recognition for it is an incredible satisfaction. Also, it increases your motivation because it's proof that developing your ideas, developing your research, and hard work always pays off. So, I cannot say enough to thank the Journal of Clinical Medicine for this recognition. That's been a very fulfilling feeling for me. It’s a wonderful feeling.

2. When and how did you access JCM? What prompted you to apply for this award? Would you like to share your experience with JCM?
Working in the field of medicine, in internal medicine, focusing especially on autoimmune diseases, I had the chance to be in contact with the Journal of Clinical Medicine several times. We also published a few papers in the Journal of Clinical Medicine with my group. So, I know the journal very well. It is a journal that I've known for a while and I usually go to check up on its webpages, and this is how I found it, on the internet pages. This is how I got the information about the prize, and I applied for it for my research.

3. Could you please give us a brief overview of your research topic and the main objectives of your Ph.D. thesis?
My Ph.D. thesis focuses on an autoimmune disease which is called antiphospholipid syndrome, and mainly on predictors of recurrence of clinical manifestations for APS (antiphospholipid syndrome).

4. Does your research field use AI technology in diagnosis and treatment? What do you think about the current advances and future opportunities of AI technology in your field?
Artificial intelligence is part of our lives and it's going to be, day by day, more and more present in our lives. It is something we cannot ignore. Focusing on my medical field, there are already several available applications that might help a clinician in establishing a diagnosis or analyzing medical reports, radiological tests, etc. The clinician’s interpretations and thinking always do make the difference, but still, when used properly, it can be a very powerful weapon in our pipeline. It significantly increases the opportunities that the clinician, doctor, and physician can have in their day-by-day practice.

5. How did you manage your time and prioritize your tasks during your Ph.D. program, and what strategies did you use to stay focused and motivated?
I started my Ph.D. right before the pandemic started, at the end of 2019. It has been hard, especially in the first part of my Ph.D., not to give up, to stay focused on my project, and its possible realization, waiting for better moments to get back to my research.

What I did was split my duties and try to focus first on collecting data and try to do it after my daily practice. When the situation improved, I spent most of the time thinking about what I could do with the data and analyzing them. I just tried to advance a little every day. I never missed the opportunity to make some progress in my day by day because it also helps in keeping yourself motivated and seeing that you can reach your goal.

6. How do you see the findings of your research impacting the field of clinical medicine and other related research areas?
As the description of my research project, the focus of my thesis was to find predictors of the recurrence of clinical manifestations in APS, a condition that affects young people with a very long life, and hopefully a long life expectancy. What I hope is that my findings will help clinicians in finding orientations to predict which patients are more likely to develop a recurrence of clinical manifestation during their lives and how to prevent that.

7. How do you plan to continue building on your research in the future, and what are your long-term career aspirations?
I’m developing, with my colleagues from Barcelona and others from parts of Italy, research projects in the field of autoimmune diseases, and especially in antiphospholipid syndrome. It is my passion; I've been developing it for several years, and I want to keep dedicating a part of my life to research.

8. What qualities do you think young scientists need?
I will start with it as it's the base for everything, passion. So, you have to be passionate about something. It's a long journey of research. Passion is fundamental. If you don't have passion, you will never dedicate the time that is needed to build up your research.

Second, you have to be consistent. You have to be consistent in your day by day, because otherwise your motivation will fade away, in the sense that you have to progress with your research, and the progress you make increases your motivation, and you only can progress if you are consistent.

You have to be resilient and adapt yourself to the conditions that you live in. You have to accept that sometimes you will have more time and sometimes you will have less time, and that maybe the results you are expecting from your research are not exactly as you planned them to be.

9. JCM is an open access (OA) journal. What is your opinion on the open access model of publishing?
With my group, we published some papers in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, and I have a positive idea of open access journals. It is important to give everyone the opportunity to read what's new, to read new research without having to have a subscription to a journal, and it opens up many opportunities. Obviously, you have to have financial support from your institution or external support to have the chance to publish in open access journals. There is always a balance between the two aspects, but I think it is wonderful that open access journals provide the opportunity for everyone to read about important advances in the medical field.

To learn more about the award process, please visit https://www.mdpi.com/journal/jcm/awards.