Pier Luigi received his scientific education at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. In 1970, he became professor at the Institut für Polymere at the ETH-Zürich and since 2006 he is part of the biology department of the University of Roma Tre. As a biochemist, he pioneered an active research in the self-organization of synthetic and biological systems, the origin of life, and semi-synthetic cellular systems (the so-called "mininal life"). Interested in the interface between science and humanities, in 1985 he founded Cortona week, legacy to this Todi-week, and participated, in 1987, to the foundation of Mind and Life in Dharamsala, India, with Francisco Varela and the Dalai Lama.