Tribute for Prof. Tatiana Bani-Sacchi.

I am glad to sketch Prof. Tatiana Bani-Sacchi’s outstanding contribution to relaxin research, which has opened new views on the biological effects and therapeutic perspectives of this hormone, with special reference to the cardiovascular field. I first met her about 30 years ago, when she was a young Full Professor of Histology in the Florence University Faculty of Medicine, yet affirmed as an experienced researcher in the endocrinological field. Despite her initial reluctance, motivated by her numerous teaching and research commitments, I succeeded in hooking her to the study of the emerging field of relaxin, which then became and remained her major interest throughout her subsequent scientific career. Tatiana Sacchi, married Bani, graduated in Biological Sciences at the Florence University, Italy, in 1959. One year later, she began assistant researcher at the Laboratory of Electron Microscopy led by Prof. Enrico Allara, where she refined her uncommon skills in the ultrastructural analysis of mammalian tissues. When Prof. Allara moved to the direction of the Institute of Histology of the Florence University Faculty of Medicine, he offered a position to his most promising pupil, thus Tatiana continued to work in the field of morphology and electron microscopy. As a graduated technician, she started her scientific career working on endocrine and exocrine glands in hibernating animals, intended as models of physiological tissue response to hypoperfusion and hypothermia. She then applied herself to the study of pancreatic islets in health and disease, using both animal models and pathological samples taken from patients suffering for pancreatic endocrine disorders and tumors. Till ‘80s, this matter was her main field of interest. Her numerous publications allowed her to earn the position of Assistant Professor and, in 1980, Full Professor of Histology and Embryology. She retired in 2000, after having authored more than 200 full papers, taught Histology and Embryology to thousands of medical students of the Florence School of Medicine, and tutored several post-graduate PhD student in Morphology and Morphogenesis. Tatiana’s first publications on relaxin were in the 1970s with studies on the histological changes induced by the administration of porcine relaxin on the mouse mammary gland and mammary equivalent target organs, such as the pigeon crop sac. These pioneering studies gave a substantial contribution to identify relaxin as a bona fide mammotropic/trophic hormone. While studying the mammary gland she noticed that relaxin, besides causing a substantial growth of the glandular parenchyma, stroma and fat pad, also induced a striking dilatation of the mammary microvessels.