Ignazio Marino

On 7 October 2016, Rome's court acquitted Marino over the allegations of embezzlement, fraud, and forgery that had been made by the centre-right opposition parties of M5S and Fratelli d'Italia and after which he had stepped down to prove his innocence. The Supreme Court of Italy decided for a full acquittal and ruled that Marino's actions "did not constitute a crime" and that the alleged facts "did not take place," according to article 530 of the Italian C.P.P.

In 2016, Marino returned to Thomas Jefferson University and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where he had remained a Professor of Surgery. He has also represented Thomas Jefferson University in Europe, through collaborations with universities including Università di Bologna and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. He also developed a Dual MD Degree program partnering Jefferson and the School of Medicine of Università Cattolica. Marino has been working to increase the number of live donor kidney transplants performed internationally through the Global Kidney Exchange. In 2020, Marino became Jefferson Executive Vice President for International Innovative Strategic Ventures.

On 12 October 2015, Marino resigned amidst an accusation of expense scandal that had been made by the opposition parties of M5S and Fratelli d'Italia, but on 29 October he retired the resignation. Nevertheless, on 30 October he was ousted from his position after 26 of the 48 members of the City Council resigned. He was replaced by a government-appointed commissioner. According to Reuters, a former anti-mafia prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Marino trod on the toes of too many vested interests who didn’t want to give up their privileges."

Shortly after his victory in the elections, he was approached by an organized crime network that rigged public contracts and embezzled funds. Marino took the case to prosecutors, starting the 2014 Rome corruption scandal. On October 18, 2014, Marino registered the marriages of 16 same-sex couples who requested it to the Municipality, which followed similar acts by other Italian mayors. Same-sex marriages and civil unions were illegal in Italy at the time, and by registering the marriages, the mayors hoped to force the hand of national legislators to clarify a deepening legal muddle around same-sex unions, particularly for Italians married abroad.

Marino ran the 2013 election for Mayor of Rome as a centre-left candidate. After leading in the first round he was elected (on 10 June) Mayor of Rome at the second ballot, winning 63.9% of the votes in a run-off against the centre-right candidate, the incumbent mayor Gianni Alemanno.

Marino ran as an independent candidate with the Democrats of the Left in the 2006 general elections, and was elected as a Senator and served as the Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Health. In the latter role Senator Marino wrote a law on living wills. He was re-elected in 2008, and in his second tenure as a Senator Marino served as Chairman of the Investigative Committee on the Italian National Health Service: in this capacity he conducted an investigation on the death of Stefano Cucchi, who died while in custody, and performed the first national investigation on judiciary criminal hospitals, eventually changing the law and the standard of treatment in Italy. In 2009 he ran as a candidate for the Democratic Party leadership election where he placed third with 12.5% of the votes.

In 2002 he left his position as Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and took on a post as Professor of Surgery and Director of Liver Transplantation at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. In 2003 he was appointed as Director of the Division of Transplantation at Thomas Jefferson University. Marino has personally performed over 650 transplants. He is a byline author of about 500 peer-review articles and has authored three scientific books. In 2005 he published the book Credere e curare ("Treating and Believing"); the book deals with the medical profession and the influence that faith has upon it. In 2005 he founded Imagine ONLUS, an international non-profit organisation engaged in international solidarity activities with special regard to health issues. He is also a member of the Editorial Board for about 20 international scientific journals.

On July 17, 2001 he successfully did the first organ transplant in Italy on a person with HIV undergoing highly active antiretroviral therapy—a kidney transplant performed in response to a personal request from the patient himself (along with the donor, his father), who had been turned down by all other Italian transplant centres. A clinical success, the operation sparked an institutional dispute in Italy at the time.

Marino founded Palermo's ISMETT (Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and Advanced Specialized Therapies), the first liver transplant center in Sicily, founded in 1997 thanks to (a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Italian Government) where Marino performed the first liver transplantation on July 31, 1999. He has been a Director and CEO of the Institute, and after performing Sicily’s first orthotopic liver transplant he performed the first 100 transplants including a number of live donor kidney and liver transplantations.

In 1992 he was appointed Associate Director of the National Liver Transplant Center of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Pittsburgh. He was a member of the surgical team which in June 1992 and January 1993 performed the first two baboon-to-human liver xenotransplants in history. The clinical trial was coordinated by Thomas Starzl.

Ignazio Roberto Maria Marino (pronounced [iɲˈɲattsjo maˈriːno] ; born 10 March 1955) is an Italian transplant surgeon, scientist, and former politician who was Mayor of Rome from 2013 to 2015. He was a member of the centre-left Democratic Party and held a seat in the Italian Senate from 2006 until his as Mayor of Rome in 2013. Near the beginning of his term his referral to prosecutors of organized criminals (who had tried to approach Mayor Marino) helped start the 2014 Rome investigation on organized crime and corruption.