Just as countless hours of consistent rigorous training are invested to prepare for a marathon, Giulio Palummieri, an international graduate student at the University of Miami, knows that his efforts at the UHealth Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) requires similar endurance and dedication—and, even then, the outcome is never guaranteed.
“When we do research in the lab, we experiment a lot and often, and usually we fail,” Palummieri said. “For me to accomplish a goal like running the Miami Marathon, it’s normal to train today, tomorrow, for six months, and still, the probability to fail is really high because you put your body at the limit, and then, on the day of the race, maybe you’re tired or the weather is bad.
“So, I’m used to training and not achieving the goal immediately. It’s more a lot of trusting the process, trust what you’re doing, and trust that if you repeat every day, at some point you will reach your goals,” he added.
Palummieri is completing the practicum component of his master’s degree in biomedical engineering, researching to develop an immunosuppressant diabetes drug that can be delivered locally and therefore more efficiently. He completed his undergraduate work and master’s graduate-level exams at the Politecnico di Milano in his home country of Italy.
The engineering collaboration is coordinated by Diana Velluto, a research assistant professor of surgery at DRI. Palummieri plans to graduate this spring and was hired as a research associate to continue in her lab. He begins doctoral studies next fall.
Velluto described Palummieri as a “bright scientist, very mature, super calm, and passionate about running.”
Born in Busto Arsizio, a small town some 40 miles from Milan in northern Italy, Palummieri enjoyed running as a general sport in primary school. In middle school, his mother—a 400m runner herself—urged him to join the club team and, realizing he was fast, he began to focus on the sport. He enjoyed his science studies, too, “but I can’t say then that I knew I wanted to be a scientist.”
He stayed with the club team through high school—Italian schools don’t have sports teams—competing and winning races even as the competition grew stiffer. Then injuries prompted him to ease his running routine and add cycling and swimming to his training.
Over time, he regained his running regime, expanded the distances, and ran his first marathon in Athens in 2021.
“The training between running a 5K and marathon is not so different; you simply increase your mileage over time,” he said. His fourth-place finish—behind only three top African runners—in the 2025 Miami Marathon was his best ever. He clocked in at 2:27:12—the world record is 2:01:09. Palummieri is training to trim his time to 2:20 and next July will run a 100K ultramarathon.
“It’s a super long race, so I just want to be in the best shape I can be,” Palummieri said. “I’m not trying to run fast—this one is just for the fun and the adventure of it.”
In Miami, he’s up every day at 6 a.m., runs 10-15K, then bikes to work from his apartment in Edgewater. He’s generally in the lab for full days Monday to Friday, researching nano particles and trying to develop an improved system for pancreatic islet transplants.
Palummieri appreciates the balance that running gives him given the long hours in the lab, and he pointed to another benefit.
“You have to be organized with your time. Because I live a distance from the lab and bike back and forth, if I have a three-hour window in the lab or a few hours in the morning for a run, I’m always looking for the best way to use that time,” he explained.
And just like in the lab, where there are no substitutes for the ongoing trials and hours of experiments needed to yield the small successes that lead to a scientific breakthrough, there are no secrets to his running prep.
“From a scientific perspective, I try to understand what is the best preparation possible, but the key is to run as much as possible and as well as possible. So, it’s run a lot, sleep a lot, eat a lot—it’s not super complicated,” Palummieri said.
In terms of his diet, Palummieri stays true to his Italian lineage.
“I eat a lot of pasta all the time,” he said.
