Gianfranco Silecchia was born in Bitetto (Bari), Italy. He received his undergraduate degree in Bari, Italy and Medical School degree in Rome “La Sapienza University”. He received postgraduate clinical and research training in Italy, Spain and USA. He holds a title in general surgery and oncology and PhD at University La Sapienza.

His research is focused on minimally invasive surgery, bariatric and metabolic surgery. He served as member of the EAES Educational & Training Commettee (2013-2017), president of the Italian Society for Endoscopy Surgery (SICE) (2017-2019) and he is General Secretary of the Collegio Italiano dei Chirurghi (Italian College of Surgeons, CIC) (2019-2021).

He is honorary member of the Romanian Association for Endoscopic Surgery (ARCE), the Associacion de Cirugia (Argentina) and Colegio Brasileiro de Sao Paulo (Brazil). He has a track record of over 174 publications (Pubmed, Scopus) in peer reviewed journals, an h-index of 30 and citation count of >2500. He has co-authored 33 chapters in textbooks and co-editored 6 textbooks.

He has served as coordinator or member of several guideline development groups, he is member of the editorial board of numerous peer-reviewed international journals. He serves as a reviewer for governmental and non-profit grant awarding bodies of Italy and Poland.

He is currently full Professor of Surgery at the Department of medico-surgical sciences and biotechnologies, Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He is head of the General Surgery Unit & Bariatric Center of Excellence IFSO-EU. He is tutor in the residency program in General Surgery and in the PhD program in gastrointestinal surgery.