He graduated in Biology at the University of Bologna in 1988 where he developed an interest in oncology. He worked as a research fellow in the Pediatric Oncology Laboratory at Gaslini Hospital in Genova, Italy from 1990 to 1992. His research was focused on the identification of new molecular targets for therapeutic approaches for Neuroblastoma.

From 1992 to 1997 he moved to the United States where he worked as post-doctoral visiting fellow in the Cellular and Molecular Biology section of the Pediatric Branch of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. The focus of his research was on the identification of the role of the activation of Trk receptors in Neuroblastoma cells. In 1997 he joined the Laboratory of Oncology of the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute where he investigated new therapeutic approaches for osteosarcoma. From 1999 his interests were not limited to the treatment of tumors, but also for the development of innovative therapeutic approaches for the reconstruction of bone tissue in osteosarcoma patients after the resection of the tumor with mesemchymal stem cells. The laboratory has developed several cell-based therapeutic products for the reconstruction of the bone that have been tested in preclinical and clinical trials. Recently, he took advantage of his experience in oncology and tissue engineering to develop in vitro and ex vivo 3D model of osteosarcoma. These models are applied to investigate the efficacy of innovative therapeutic agents, such as nanoparticles and photo dynamic therapy. In November 2017, Enrico Lucarelli was appointed Assistant Affiliate Member of the Houston Methodist Research Institute thanks to a collaboration with the Department of Nanomedicine. Currently he is the head of the Regenerative Therapies in Oncology Unit. He is the author of 97 publications in peer-reviewed journals, with an H-index of 32 (source: SCOPUS).