Pisana Ferrari has a background in Political Science and International Law. Since her double lung transplant in 2002 she has been active as a patient advocate for pulmonary hypertension and for organ donation and transplant, in her own country, Italy, and at European level. She is President of AIPI, Italian Pulmonary Hypertension Association, which she founded with other pulmonary hypertension patients in 2001, and Secretary General of the Alliance for Pulmonary Hypertension, a non profit umbrella organisation for pulmonary hypertension registered in Brussels, Belgium.