Azzurro Gio: the dream of Amedeo and James for ALS research

A Virtual Race to Remember a Father’s Real Love

«Non fateci caso se durante questa intervista ogni tanto riderò, io sono fatto così».

Amedeo begins like this, with a smile that doesn’t hide the pain, but crosses it and transforms it.

Next to him is James, his dear friend, companion of a thousand adventures and today also of a project that aims to make a difference.

We rarely meet young people like them. Not because solidarity is an issue of age, but because usually those who dedicate themselves to causes like this are a bit older: parents who have lost a child, men and women who, over time, have chosen to devote a part of their lives to others to build a better future.

Amedeo and James are 23 and 24 years old, but they know very well who they are and where they want to go. A determination that Amedeo inherited entirely from his father, Giovanni, a brilliant man who never stopped, even when illness upended his life.

Giovanni was born in 1964. A bank officer, lecturer, and motorsport enthusiast. He believed in knowledge and the importance of sharing it, so much so that he created his own secret newsletter to update colleagues on economics and finance. For him, knowledge was an absolute value, something to share. “A few years ago he even enrolled in a master’s program,” Amedeo recalls. “He always told me, ‘Studying makes a man free.’”

ALS entered his life quietly: sudden back pain that wouldn’t go away, a dull persistent discomfort in his leg that kept returning. At first, it seemed like sciatica, perhaps caused by the sedentary lifestyle imposed by his work and COVID, they thought. Then came the first visits, cortisone injections, doubts.

The diagnosis came by exclusion. “There is no diagnostic test for this disease,” Amedeo explains, who from that moment began to inform himself more and more.

“Motor neuron degeneration, bulbar ALS, spinal ALS…”

For many of us, these are just words, difficult acronyms to decipher, but behind them lies a very serious and progressive disease that affects the nervous system.

ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, is a neurodegenerative disease that affects motor neurons, the cells that transmit signals from the brain to the muscles.

Over time, these signals weaken until they disappear, leading to a progressive loss of the ability to move, speak, swallow, and finally breathe. There are different forms of ALS, but what all variants share is the absence of a definitive cure: to date, there is no treatment able to stop its progression.

“At first, I didn’t want to accept it,” admits Amedeo. “It seemed impossible to resign myself to being unable to do anything.”

Those were the months when there was a lot of talk about Neuralink, Elon Musk’s neural interface project. “I read everything I could find, trying to understand if there could be hope, something concrete. Then, at a certain point, I had to face reality.”

From June 2021, the month of the diagnosis, the disease accelerated relentlessly. “By October he started using a wheelchair, by December he was bedridden, and by February we had to get him a respirator. That’s when I realized those would be the last months with dad, and I took a break from university.”

“I remember that period a bit hazily,” continues Amedeo. Memory is selective: it blurs the most painful details, but retains what really matters.

And what Amedeo remembers well is that, until the end, Giovanni kept his spirit. “Dad never lost his humor and will to do. One day, when he was already bedridden, he told us he wanted to do another master’s program.”

And the night before he passed, he told him only one thing: “You have to stay calm.”

“Meaning, he was like that and he was telling me to stay calm,” Amedeo laughs.

Calm. Something that, when dealing with a disease like this, seems impossible to achieve.

Yet, Amedeo found it again in a project and in a friendship born many years before, almost by chance. “It was the first day of school in the United States, specifically in Idaho. I had decided to spend my third year of high school abroad,” Amedeo explains. “At one point I hear a boy speaking to the teacher in a slightly broken English,” he laughs, “Are you Italian too?”

The other boy was James, also there to study. From that day, they became inseparable.

They shared an intense year, full of unforgettable experiences and common interests, like football. Back in Italy, they finished high school in their respective cities, but fate brought them back together a few years later in Milan: Amedeo enrolled at the Polytechnic, in the Engineering faculty, while James chose to study Communication.

Besides friendship, a great passion united them: motorsports.

James, since he was a child, had been a motorcycle racer, while Amedeo had always dreamed of becoming a track engineer. So, they decided to combine their skills and step into the world of e-sports, the sector of virtual racing competitions on simulators.

James on the track, Amedeo at the pit wall. A perfect team, where one races and the other studies every technical detail: analyzing data, developing strategies, refining performance.

What started as just an idea slowly began to take shape.
They registered for the ACI virtual racing championships, participating in high-level online competitions. “This system trains both the driver and the engineer,” they explain. “Unlike real tracks, here we can make mistakes and retry without limits. If something goes wrong, we adjust the strategy and go back into the race. There are no prohibitive costs: we can experiment and perfect every detail without fear of breaking anything.”

Then, an even bigger idea: “Why not create an ongoing fundraiser and e-sport events that keep dad’s memory alive?”

Thus was born Azzurro Gio, an initiative that combines their passion for motors with a charitable cause: supporting research on neurodegenerative diseases. The name honors Giovanni: “Azzurro” was his favorite color, “Gio” the nickname everyone knew him by.

The funds raised will support an innovative project led by Prof. Stefania Corti at our “Centro Dino Ferrari”, aiming to recreate in the lab the complex signaling network between brain, spinal cord, and muscles – the same one ALS progressively destroys. Using 3D organoids created from patient cells, researchers can observe the earliest signs of the disease and seek new strategies to stop it from the start.

“We want his story to mean something, to make a difference for those facing a neurodegenerative disease like ALS today.”

Thus, two twenty-year-olds stepped up, proving that age is no barrier when there’s a cause you truly believe in.

Among their next initiatives is an event on Wednesday, May 14 at 9:00 PM: an e-sport race with live commentary and updates on Twitch, allowing everyone to follow from home and contribute to the cause. The prize pool, €500, will be divided among the top six finishers.e-sport con telecronaca e aggiornamenti in tempo reale su Twitch, per permettere a tutti di seguirla da casa e contribuire alla causa. Il montepremi, pari a 500€, verrà diviso tra i primi 6 classificati.

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