Piergiacomo Calzavara-Pinton attended the Medical School in Milan, Italy, and completed his clinical Dermatology training at the Department of Dermatology I at the University of Milan. Since 1984 he has been a member of staff in the Department of Dermatology at the Spedali Civili of Brescia and, since 1998, has been the head of the Photobiology and Phototherapy Unit. His main fields of clinical research are phototherapy, photochemotherapy, photodynamic therapy and connective tissue diseases. He is also involved in clinical and experimental trials for the development of new "second generation" photosensitisers for photodynamic therapy.