Giancarlo Pepeu was born on 29 March 1930 in
Milan,
Italy. He was a member of the Pepeu family, whose earliest known member was Stefano Pepeu, a merchant in
Trieste, born about 1750, presumably to immigrant parents. In the Pepeu family, it has been passed down that the surname Pepeu is of
Istro-Romanian origin. The termination -u, common in surnames of the related
Romanians, could be proof of distant
Istro-Romanian ancestry of the Pepeu family. Giancarlo's family is the only one known to carry the surname Pepeu in Trieste and in the rest of Italy. Upon completing his studies in 1954, Giancarlo Pepeu began research at the
Florence's Institute of
Pharmacology, under the guidance of Professor Mario Aiazzi-Mancini. In 1958, he became a
postdoctoral fellow at
Yale University's Department of Pharmacology, and from 1961 to 1968 he contributed as assistant professor across Italian Universities in
Sassari,
Pisa and
Cagliari. Subsequently, Pepeu became
full professor of
pharmacology in 1968. In 1974, Pepeu was appointed Professor Pharmacology at the
University of Florence's Faculty of Medicine, a position he held until his retirement in 2005. While in Florence he also held roles as the
Dean for
Scientific Research and
International Relations, and as the Director of the Department of
Preclinical and
Clinical Pharmacology. Additionally, Pepeu served as the president of the Italian Pharmacological Society. Pepeu died on 20 November 2021. == Academic research ==