Italian physicist Alessandro Pascolini. He holds a professorship in mathemathical methods of physics at the University of Padua, Italy, and since 1988 has been responsible for the promotion of the activities of the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN). INFN coordinates and funds nuclear and subatomic research in Italy. One of the main research centres is the Gran Sasso Laboratory, Italy, the largest underground centre in the world. Experiments at Gran Sasso involve the detection of solar neutrinos, high-energy particles in the cosmic rays and magnetic monopoles, exotic particles never seen so far.