From the left: Roberto Vizzari on behalf of the Città Metropolitana, Simona Ambusto, Francesco Cacciante, Gianfranco Bertone and young assistant Luna Bertone.
A book on how life emerged from inanimate matter, by biologist and science communicator Francesco Cacciante, wins the Premio Cosmos 2026.
The Premio Cosmos 2026 was awarded on 11 October in Reggio Calabria, at the close of the three-day Cosmos festival. The scientific committee chose Dalle stelle alla cellula. La vita è scritta nelle leggi dell’Universo by Francesco Cacciante, published by Apogeo.
Cacciante is a biologist and neuroscientist with a PhD from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Since 2022 he has run A Caccia Di Scienza (AC/DS), a science outreach project followed by more than 80,000 people on social media.
The jury’s citation
Francesco Cacciante’s book Dalle stelle alla cellula takes readers into one of the great questions of science: how did life emerge from inanimate matter?
With an unconventional style of communication, able to engage even the youngest readers, the author makes a complex and interdisciplinary field of research understandable, one in which much remains to be discovered.
A work that invites readers to confront one of the deepest questions of our existence.
It is a second consecutive Premio Cosmos for Apogeo, which published Chris Impey’s Mondi senza fine, the 2025 winner. The Premio Cosmos degli Studenti 2026 had already been awarded in May, when Italy’s student juries chose Dio gioca a dadi con il mondo by Giuseppe Mussardo and Luca Morici.
The winning book
- Premio Cosmos: Dalle stelle alla cellula. La vita è scritta nelle leggi dell’Universo, Francesco Cacciante (Apogeo)
