Francesco Pappalardo earned his MSc. and PhD. degrees from University of Catania, in 2000 and 2004 respectively. Presently he is temporarily assigned to the professorship of Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Catania.

From 2001 to 2004 he did research in computer operating system security. In 2008 he was visiting researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston (USA) while in 2006 he visited the Molecular Immunogenetics Labs, IMGT in Montpellier (France).

His major research area is on modeling human and mouse immune system responses involved in several pathologies, including viral infections, tumors, and atherosclerosis. This effort leads to both a better understanding of the immune system, and to the application of these modeling approaches to vaccine research.

Up to now, Francesco Pappalardo published about 70 reviewed research papers. He serves the scientific community as editorial board member, reviewer and program committee member for major journals and conferences in the area of computer science and computational biology.

Since 2007, Francesco Pappalardo serves as expert evaluator for the European Community in the evaluation of proposals towards objectives of the ICT for Health theme of the FP7.