The Intersection of Science and Politics
Webster alumna chases malaria vaccine, preserves history, seeks to blend science and diplomacy

Erica Pasini’s efforts led to Italy creating a day of remembrance for victims of the Foibe.

She’s a scientist. She’s a diplomat. She’s an example of a globally engaged, multi-disciplinary graduate of Webster University’s College of Arts & Sciences.

And that’s not hyperbole. Consider: While Erica Pasini earned her master’s in International Relations at Webster’s Leiden campus, the holder of a Ph.D. in Drug Chemistry was also working on a new malaria vaccine that was 20 years in the making. Meanwhile, one of her projects as an I.R. student was a provocative paper researching the obscured story of “The Foibe,” a massacre of Italian civilians by Tito’s Yugoslav partisans at the close of World War II. Not bad for a working adult.

With her combination of skills, Pasini, a native of Milan, Italy, is driven to help humanity by filling the gap between science and politics.

“I think that a scientist is guided by curiosity and thus driven to different aspects of life,” Pasini explains. “He applies the scientific method and intuition in the attempt to find synthesis. I think that one of the most exciting figures in this sense was Benjamin Franklin, who was at once one of the greatest diplomats of all times and a world-famous scientist.

“Unfortunately, nowadays, everything tends toward over-specialization, so the search for an original path is often hampered by the lack of opportunity to combine different experiences,” she says. “It’s ironic how in the age of globalization – where ‘fusion’ is the buzz word – we desperately need science and politics to communicate, yet they are still largely divided by a continued, forceful separation between the fields.”

But first, back to how these complementary interests developed.

Pasini first heard of the Foibe from a visitor to her family home when she was just 5. “The dinner discussion evolved around a major historical event being hidden from the public,” she recalls. “I could gather that there was something to investigate, but the details seemed rather complex.”

Fast forward to her teenage years. Interest in the story had never left the back of her mind. As a youth leader in her school, she used to visit Rome frequently for various committees, when she took the opportunity to explore the Italian national archives.

“The idea was still to investigate the mystery of ‘Foibe,’” Pasini says. “On the one hand, unraveling it meant fulfilling the curiosity of a child, realizing the promise of adventure through an intellectual journey; on the other, it turned out to be a methodical, time-consuming, serious investigation. I was driven by interest, by the necessity to understand and piece together my childhood’s impressions of the topic and the story of the old library curator, a de facto eye witness, within some sort of historical truth.

“Foibe needed to find its dimension and become an account of historical events rather than just of emotions,” she explains. “It did. I think it is important to understand that there was no a priori thesis behind the Foibe essay.”

Pasini’s intent was – like the truth commissions discussed by Rashida Manjoo in this issue – not so much to prosecute but to restore and preserve the historical record.

“I found it an excellent example of Lemkin’s theory: ‘Genocide begins with the destruction of the national patterns of the oppressed by the oppressor,’” Pasini says. “The area of the Balkans in question went through Ottomanization, Austrianization, Italianization, Germanization, and some of the older people living there to whom I had the chance to talk to are still wondering what will come next. In my view the answer is most likely Europeanization – if such a thing exists.

“When I examined archive material, the aim was to know and understand. When I wrote the essay, I realized that certain unlucky areas are crossroads of history. People living in those areas are tormented as they attempt to hold on to an identity and traditions, which transform continuously due to both new peaceful immigration, but mostly to new invasion waves. My main aim was to safeguard the memory without overriding the differences, and to collect the voices of the past in an attempt to return dignity and justice to all the suffering without overemphasizing, but – most importantly – without concealing.”

Then there is Pasini’s scientific side.

She has been working as part of a number of research groups worldwide on the problem of malaria, which evolves (and develops resistance) both through the parasite itself and through malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Mass immunization is the goal. Academic institutions work on an eradication vaccine (for endemic tropical areas and third-world countries), while many companies and military institutions target traveler vaccines (which provide short-term immunity for traveling business people and military personnel, etc.).

“At this point in time, it’s difficult to say which line may be more promising and which goal would be realistically easier to achieve,” Pasini explains. “Several clinical trials are taking place, mostly across Africa, but preliminary results suggest that vaccine combinations will give the highest level of protection. It has thus become essential to broaden the spectrum of molecules – currently around 20 out of about 5190 – able to elicit a response and potentially function as a vaccine.”

Pasini is mainly leading some of the discovery efforts and training Ph.D. students from third-world countries.

She was inspired to pursue the sciences by a dear boyfriend, a medical student who died of cancer at age 22. But her father had diplomacy in mind for his daughter’s career path: “He was pretty happy about it, as it was in perfect agreement with what he had decided for me since I was born: daughter on the humanistic and son on the technical route.”

But Pasini was moved by her exposure to medicine and sciences with her boyfriend, so she studied chemistry and pharmaceutical technologies. In the end, she pursued and will likely combine both paths – no doubt making both men in her life happy.

After completing her degree at Webster in 2008, Pasini has many options before her: positions abroad in international law, international relations, and science.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do at this point,” she says. “I’m fascinated by the idea of combining all these things somehow and am using my creativity to put forward possible ways of achieving this.”

Whatever route she chooses, Pasini will surely do Webster’s Arts – and Sciences – proud.