In memory of Prof. Enrico Tiscornia

He was the past President of Italian Society for Fats Research, Academic of National Italian Academy of olive and olive oil , awarded in 2010 with Stefano Fachini golden medal. He had been a part of the last quarter of century of research activities on lipids, collocating himself at the center of related national and international research activities carried out both by personal work as well as through the Italian Society for Fats Research.

He was full professor of Food Chemistry, at the Dept. of Pharmaceutical and Food Chemistry DCTFA) (formerly Faculty of Pharmacy) at University of Genoa and Professor of Food Chemistry at University – “Campus Biomedico” in Rome too.
The activity of Prof. Tiscornia was mainly carried out at University of Genoa where, thanks to his leadership, a “school” has been established. (https://iris.unige.it/cris/rp/rp01694/network#.X8umXKGg8WQ) Many researchers cooperate with him, and this is a witness of his creativity.

On 1996, November 28th, following the Riccardo Monacelli’s intuition and motivation, Prof. Tiscornia founded, together with other eminent Colleagues, the Italian Society of Nutrition (SISA), one of the earlier scientific societies dealing with food topics, that was later joined by the national health institute (ISS) activities.
Prof. Tiscornia chaired the “Interdivisional Group of Food Chemistry ”of Italian Chemical Society, the subcommittee Vegetal oils of the Italian Technical Committee of Italian Ministry of Productive Activities (formerly Ministry on Industry), the Committee for analytical methods on edible fats and oils updating by Italian Agriculture Ministry as well as the Italian Group of Codex Alimentarius Fats and Oils Committee. He was Italian delegate at IUPAC, (fats and Oils section) on behalf of Italian Council for Scientific Research (CNR), as well as Italian delegate at UE Commission (formerly EEC Commission) within the Group of Chemists Expert on of Olive Oils and Italian delegate at International Olive Council (Olive oil chemistry group. During his assignment at UE, he had been one of the scientists in charge of preparing the UE Regulation on olive oil: the work of this group leaded to the adoption of the Reg (CEE) 2568/91 that had been the cornerstone of any further regulation on olive oils.

Within this, Prof Tiscornia directly collaborated on for creating and planning collaborative tests to validate some analytical methods, his capability of being engaged in long discussions without losing his calm, and looking for diplomacy, even in conflictual and bad situations, enduring great and positive results, overturning negative situations into positive situations thanks to his approach. During his managing board in meetings of SISSG, as secretary and as President, Prof. Tiscornia has always conducted discussion with a great concrete approach that joined to his scientific equilibrium, that was very important within that group, ensured the respect of technical aspects, taking care to respect previous decisions.
Prof. Tiscornia had been very efficient in mediating between divergent proposals within the Managing board meetings, thanks to his deep knowledge in Fats and Oils Fields of production and control.
During his managing board in meetings of SISSG, as secretary and as President, Prof. Tiscornia has always conducted discussion with a great concrete approach that joined to his scientific equilibrium, that was very important within that group, ensured the respect of technical aspects, taking care to respect previous decisions.
Prof. Tiscornia had been very efficient in mediating between divergent proposals within the Managing board meetings, thanks to his deep knowledge in Fats and Oils Fields of production and control. Prof. Tiscornia, leading SISSG after prof, Fedeli, promoted further studies on new analytical parameters suitable to evaluate olive oils, at national and international situation.
Thanks to the leadership of prof. Tiscornia, SISSG work had been efficient in reaching successes through the results of collaborative experimentations, that were used worldwide for the control of European quality oil.