Ms. Laura Maioglio was born and raised in New York. She attended the Brearley School and graduated from Bryn Mawr College magna cum laude with a degree in Art History. Throughout her life, she continued to frequent her family home in Piemonte, spending extended periods in Europe and Italy, including a year studying at the University of Florence. Her long sojourns in Italy, particularly in Piemonte, have provided her with first-hand knowledge of Italian food and wine, especially that of her native region, Piemonte.

Her late husband, Dr. Günter Blobel, who won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Medicine, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, to the American Philosophical Society, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among Dr. Blobel's numerous other awards are the Lasker Award, the King Faisal Award, the Horwitz Prize, the Lounsbery Award, and the Mayor's (N.Y.) Prize for Excellence in Science.

Dr. Blobel gave the proceeds of the almost one million dollars of his Nobel Prize to the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche and of the Synagogue in Dresden. In 1994 Dr. Blobel founded Friends of Dresden, a not-for-profit organization that raises money in America for the reconstruction of Dresden, razed to the ground in the bombing of 1945.