Farewell to Boncinelli, the father of architectural geniuses.

He was the "father" of the architect genes that design and control the proper development of the human body: geneticist Edoardo Boncinelli died in Milan at the age of 84, leaving behind a great scientific and educational legacy. He discovered architect genes in 1985, along with some of his collaborators, and that discovery is considered one of the most important for biology of this century, the fruit of an intuition he had while chatting with a colleague. A geneticist and brilliant author of numerous popular science books, one of his works, "The Soul of Technology," won the 2006 Merck Serono Literary Prize, awarded to essays and novels that make scientific culture accessible even to the less experienced. In 2011, the Corriere della Sera, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, included his discoveries among the ten discoveries by Italian researchers to be remembered in the history of Italy. Born in Rhodes in 1941, Boncinelli graduated in physics from the University of Florence, with an experimental thesis on quantum electronics. He subsequently devoted himself to the study of genetics and molecular biology, particularly the embryonic development of higher animals and humans. His research took place first at the Institute of Genetics and Biophysics of the National Research Council (IGB-CNR) in Naples, where he remained for over twenty years, until 1992, and where he made his most important discovery. He then moved to Milan, where he directed the molecular biology laboratory at the San Raffaele University Scientific Institute and the CNR's Center for the Study of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. Over the years, active research gave way to thought and reflection, but this "exorbitantly disciplined rebel," as he described himself, continued to contribute. He has taught both at the Faculties of Science and Medicine and Surgery at the University of Naples "Federico II", and at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. He has also collaborated with the Corriere della Sera and the magazine Le Scienze, thanks to his column "Laboratory Notes", and in 2016 he received an honorary Master's Degree in Philosophical Sciences from the University of Palermo. Alongside his scientific research, Edoardo Boncinelli has pursued a brilliant and tireless career as an essayist and science communicator. In addition to "The Soul of Technology", his many books include: "Letter to a Child Who Will Live to Be 100 Years" (2010), on the new frontiers of genetics, the autobiography "One Life Is Not Enough. Story of an Incapable Genius" (2013), and "Against the Sacred. Why Faiths Make Us Stupid" (2016). A passionate Greek scholar, in 2008 Boncinelli also published a collection of classical Greek lyrics: 365 lyrics, one for each day of the year.