Sammy Basso died at the age of 28the Venetian biologist suffering from progeria. He was born on 1 December 1995 in Thiene and lived in Tezze sul Brenta. He had only returned from a trip to China a few weeks ago.
Sammy Basso was having dinner with family and friends at Villa Razzolini Loredan in Asolo (Treviso) when he suddenly felt ill. A Suem 118 ambulance arrived on the scene and doctors attempted to resuscitate him, but their attempt was in vain.
Only a few days ago he was awarded the Paolo Rizzi Journalism Award in Venice in the “Environment and Society” category for “the willpower, the spirit of sacrifice, the courage that support him: a great example to look at with admiration and gratitude and try to imitate.”
In 2018 he graduated from the University of Padua in Natural Sciences, with a thesis aimed at demonstrating the possibility of curing progeria through genetic engineering. The following year he was appointed, motu proprio by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2021 he specialized in Molecular Biology, graduating from the University of Padua with a thesis aimed at clarifying the correlation between progeria and inflammation.
Basso graduated in Natural Sciences from the University of Padua in 2018 with a thesis dedicated to the existence of therapies to slow down the progress of his pathology. He had also founded the Italian Progeria Association Sammy Basso (Aiprosab). Sammy Basso he was the longest-living patient in the world suffering from Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, an ultra-rare pathology characterized by “premature aging”.
Researcher and protagonist of more than one documentary on his story, Sammy Basso suffered from progeria: a very rare syndrome that causes premature aging. Sammy fought to raise awareness of his disease, which affects just 5 people in Italy, around a hundred in the world. Originally from Tezze sul Brenta, near Vicenza, he weighed about 20 kilos, and was about 1.40 meters tall. He is just a boy but he has wrinkles, fragile bones and no hair. His disease is due to a very rare genetic mutation (of the Lmna gene): those who suffer from it present, even at a very young age, pathologies that characterize old age, such as heart attack, stroke and heart failure.
The first signs appeared already a few months old, when he began to show a sharp slowdown in growth. The diagnosis of progeria or Hutchinson-Gilford Syndrome (Hgps) came when he was just two years old and in Italy the disease was almost unknown. Hence the need to go for treatment overseas, to the Children’s Hospital in Boston, the leading research center in the world, where new drugs are being tested to try to slow down the progress of this disease, which affects the entire body except mental abilities. At the time of diagnosis, according to doctors he would not have exceeded the age of 13. He lived 28.
Many times as a guest on television, including on Sanremo, he was the protagonist of the documentary produced in the United States ‘Life According to Sam’ and of a docufilm in episodes ‘Sammy’s Journey’, broadcast in Italy. The Sammy Basso Italian Progeria Association, founded in 2005 by his parents to raise funds for research, bears his name.
The memory of the Italian Progeria Association Sammy Basso
Jovanotti’s greeting
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