In Memoriam: Lamberto Piron

On January 3, 2011, Lamberto Piron passed away in his home, at the age of 48, after a long illness, leaving his wife and two sons. Lamberto was a neurologist in the Neurorehabilitation Department at the Fondazione Ospedale San Camillo – I.R.C.C.S, in Venice, Italy. He also served as chief of the Cerebrovascular Division and was the scientific leader of the Laboratory of Robotics and Kinematics. He had two decades of experience in the clinical and experimental area of neurological rehabilitation, telemedicine, robotics, and virtual reality, and produced 21 publications in peer-reviewed journals and over 100 papers in conferences. He was the coordinator of three Italian Ministry funded research projects, and an FP7 European Project, and he was a professor with an annual appointment at the University of Padua (Italy). He was also the local chair of the Virtual Rehabilitation Congress hosted in Venice in 2007. In his daily work, he was a model and reference point for all his colleagues through his rigorous and innovative scientific approach for addressing neurorehabilitation challenges with the aim to improve the development of innovative technologies in rehabilitation. He was an honorable man and scientist, but was also a model for the strong belief that the daily care of patients was the privileged framework to significantly move forward innovation in clinical research. His death has left a gap within an important area of neurorehabilitation innovation, not only in Italy, but across the whole field at the international level. Contributed by Andrea Turolla