Ferruccio Ritossa (February 25, 1936 – January 9, 2014) was an Italian geneticist best known for his discovery of the heat shock response in the model organism Drosophila (fruit flies).
[1][4] Ritossa was interested in the newly emerging field of molecular genetics and began to study the polytene chromosomes found in Drosophila salivary glands.
[1][2] As Ritossa later recalled,[5] an accidental change in the temperature of a laboratory incubator unexpectedly revealed a distinct "puffing" pattern, and in following up on this serendipitous discovery he found that RNA was reliably and rapidly produced in puffs induced by temperature, later described as "the first known environmental stress acting directly on gene activity".
[1] He returned to Italy to rejoin Buzzati-Traverso's laboratory institution in Naples and remained there till 1969, when he joined the faculty at the University of Bari.
[1][4] He was recognized with a medal by the Cell Stress Society International,[8] which now maintains an award for early-career scientists in his honor.