Graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Genoa. Specialized in Clinical and Laboratory Hematology in the same Faculty three years later, specialized in Pediatrics in 1984, he was director at the Gaslini Hospital in Genoa for twenty years, worked for three years in pharmacological research in the USA for the development of a family of new molecules from which Valaciclovir was then derived

Since 2010 he has been director of the department of oncohematology, cell therapy, gene therapies and hemopoietic transplantation at the Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital and full professor of pediatrics, since November 2018, at the University of Rome "La Sapienza"and, from 2022, at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. In March 2021 he was also coordinator of the Scientific Technical Committee.

He was Director of the Institute for Research in Genetics and Biomedicine (IRGB), of the National Research Council (CNR). He currently is Director Unit Clinical Genetics at  University Hospital and Full Professor of Medical Genetics at University of Sassari. Member of the “Multiple Sclerosis Global Alliance” and of the “Experimental Medicine Trials Initiative”. Member of the steering committee of the FISM (Italian Multiple Sclerosis Foundation)

He has been a research executive at CNR since 2002, and from the same year until 2010, he served as President and CEO of Neuroscience PharmaNess Scarl. Permanent Representative for Italy to the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). From November 2011 to October 2016 he held the position of General Director of the Italian Drug Agency (AIFA). At the end of 2017, Luca Pani accepted the role of Executive Director of Neurocog Trial based in Durham, North Caroline, USA. A year later, in October 2018, NeuroCog Trials became VeraSci and Luca Pani’s role as VP for Regulatory Strategy and Market Access Innovation.

Since January 2010 Director of the Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation of the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital. January 2009 - Director of the Neuroscience Department of the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital. Vice President of FOREP, Foundation for Research on Epilepsy and Related Syndromes, from April 1989 to 2000. President of the LICE Foundation from 2010 to 2013 and current Past President. Lecturer at the Graduate School of Neurology - University "La Sapienza" - Rome.

She is Head of the Department of Acute Brain Injury, Istituto Mario Negri. From 2002 to 2008 she was assistant physician, in critical care medicine and anesthesiology, permanent position Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine University hospital, Milano Italy. From 2008 she is teaching assignment into postgraduate school of Critical Care Medicine and Anesthesiology, University of Milano and full time researcher position at the Laboratory of Inflammation and Nervous System Diseases, Mario IRFMN Institute.