Paolo Romano graduated in Electronic Engineering at the University of Genoa, and got a PhD in BioEngineering at the Polytechnic of Milan.
From 1988 to 1990 he has been working for a small company, RST - Software Grafico e Scientifico, and from 1990 to 1993 he has been Researcher at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Oncology of the University of Genoa. Since 1993, he is a researcher at IST, the National Cancer Research Institute of Genoa, that from September 2011 merged with the main hospital of the town and is now part of the "Ospedale Policlinico San Martino".
Since 1989, his research interests were in the field of biomedical data management. He designed and contributed to the development of the Molecular Probe Data Base and of the Cell Line Data Base and its associated hypertext HyperCLDB. Recently, he contributed to the development of the Cell Line Integrated Molecular Authentication (CLIMA) Data Base. Since 1999 he is in charge of the CABRI (Common Access to Biological Resources and Information) network services offering living resources from 28 European collections.
Since 2004, he is working in the Bioinformatics laboratory. He has been involved in researches on network standards, technologies, tools and applications in bioinformatics. He designed and developed Biowep, the Workflow Enactment Portal for Bioinformatics.
He is author of more than 60 publications in peer-reviewed international journals.
He taught academic courses "Bioimages" and "Bioinformatics" at the University of Genoa.
He was the creator of Network Tools and Applications in Biology (NETTAB) workshops that are running annually since 2001.
He participated in many Programme Committees and has been a referee for Bioinformatics and BMC Bioinformatics journals. Since 2010, he is Associated Editor of Briefings in Bioinformatics. Since 2013, he is member of the Honorary Editorial Board of Advances and Applications in Bioinformatics and Chemistry.
He coordinated the National Network for Oncology Bioinformatics (Rete Nazionale di Bioinformatica Oncologica - RNBIO) from 2007 to 2011 and the Liguria Bioinformatics Network (Rete Ligure di Bioinformatica - ReLiB).
He is member of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) from 2001 and of the Bioinformatics Italian Society (BITS) since its foundation. He is member elected of BITS Steering Committee for the periods 2008-2010, 2010-2012, 2012-2014, and 2014-2016. From 2010 to 2012 he has been Secretary of BITS. He has been member of the Scientific Committee of BITS meetings since 2009.