Speranza Donatella Rubattu has been a dedicated and rigorous researcher in the field of cardiovascular disease and hypertension and one of my most strict and reliable collaborators for about 35 years.

She was born in 1958 in Sassari in Sardinia, her true and loved homeland, and she died for a very aggressive and unexpected disease in October 2025 in Rome.

She graduated in Medicine and got her Cardiology Board Certification at the University of Sassari. Very young, she joined in the late ‘80s the Cardiovascular and Hypertension Center at Cornell University Medical College—the New York Hospital as a Research Fellow, collaborating at fundamental studies on prorenin and the RAS with Drs Jean E. Sealey and John H. Laragh. I met her for the first time in those years in NYC, and I was immediately impressed by her strong and sincere passion for basic and translational research. She then joined me in the early ‘90s in the University of Napoli Federico II where she contributed to develop solid laboratory techniques and to publish important articles in the field of Natriuretic Peptides’ pathophysiology in heart failure and hypertension. She then became very active in the area of the Natriuretic Peptides (NP) System, leading to important discoveries and collaborating with authoritative international scientists.

A few years later, I encouraged her to join Klaus Lindpaintner’s group in Boston, at the Harvard Medical College to investigate the genetic basis of cardiovascular accidents, especially stroke in the animal model of the stroke-prone rat and in human cohorts. Her pioneering work led to the identification of genes involved in stroke pathogenesis (among which the NP gene) and her contributions were published in leading scientific journals such as Nature Genetics, Circulation, Circulation Research, Journal of Clinical Investigation and many other high impact journals.

When she moved back to Italy in 1999 she joined me at the University of Rome Sapienza and in the Sant’Andrea Hospital ,where she demonstrated to be a dedicated and careful clinical cardiologist, and she also developed an impressive academic career being appointed Established Investigator first, Associate Professor of Cardiology then, and finally Full Professor in Applied Technical Medical Sciences at the University Sapienza of Rome. In the same 20 years she also set up and run a laboratory of basic and physiological Research in the area of cardiovascular disease and hypertension at the IRCCS Neuromed.

She was extremely productive in these scientific environments, and she was very proud of her “baby laboratory” and of her small group of collaborators in Neuromed. She was also a member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Society of Cardiovascular Prevention and of the related Foundation and a prestigious number of the Editorial Board of High Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Prevention.

Beside her scientific, academic and teaching qualities, she was a very nice and pleasant person and a lot of people enjoyed her company and her firm and true friendship. She was taken away by a terrible disease but her scientific inheritance and legacy remains strong among her fellows and pupils as well as in all the people who knew her and appreciated her.

Personally, I lost an important part of my life, an outstanding scientist, and a faithful friend and collaborator: I will never forget you, Speranza, wherever you are. Rest in peace.

High Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Prevention