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The Biomedical Researchand Biotechnology Center
MEDITERRANEAN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
Creating a World-class Biotech Industryin Southern Italy
Salvatore Pasta, Ri.MED Fellow
With Ri.MED, we want to make a substantial contribution to biomedical research globally. The goal is not only to do world-class science but also to do the kind of science that will lead to the emergence of a biotechnology industry in Southern Italy.
Arthur S. Levine, M.D., Dean of the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Ri.MED Biomedical Research and Biotechnological Center
The Ri.MED (Ricerca Mediterranea)
Foundation was established in 2006 and has
the aim of promoting, supporting and
carrying out research leading to innovation
in clinical practice in the fields of
biotechnology, regenerative medicine, new
drugs and vaccines, new-generation medical
devices, and therapies for brain disorders.
Ri.MED also aims to foster economic well-
being by creating jobs and business
opportunities on the local, national, and
international level.
Based in Palermo, Sicily, the Ri.MED
Foundation is an international partnership
whose members include the Italian
government, the Sicilian regional
government, Italy's National Research
Council (CNR), the University of
Pittsburgh, and the University of Pittsburgh
Medical Center (UPMC).
Biotechnology is one of the world's fastest
growing industries, and Ri.MED will help
advance the biotechnology industry in Sicily
and beyond through its Biomedical Research
and Biotechnology Center (BRBC). BRBC
is the first phase of a greater plan for a
campus that could potentially include a
medical school and a hospital. The center,
located near Palermo in Carini, is expected
to open by 2016 and will be composed of:
Ÿ a state-of-the-art, 25,000 square meter
laboratory building with research
laboratories, centralized core facilities,
and state-of-the-art equipment;
Ÿ facilities for pre-clinical in vivo studies;
Ÿ a corporate incubator designed to
facilitate the creation of new startups and
accelerate the time-to-market of new
products and treatment techniques.
The Biomedical Researchand Biotechnology Center 3
We want to ensure that good research publications and important discoveries also lead to the development of new products. We will offer our researchers advanced and well-equipped laboratory facilities and the possibility to do highly competitive research that is judged only on its merits.
Bruno Gridelli, M.D., Vice President of Ri.MED Foundation and Chief of ISMETT
The Ri.MED Foundation's BRBC will help affirm
a central role for Italy and Sicily in the development
of new medical therapies, biomedical products and
devices, and diagnostic tests. It will also improve
life expectancy and quality of life for the citizens of
Italy and the world, and enhance Italy's position in
the international scientific community. Italian
researchers are famous the world over, and in a
number of fields - from pure science to mathematics
to the social sciences. Its biotech research center
will help Italy to retain some of its best medical and
scientific talents and attract some of the world's top
researchers to Palermo.
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The Biomedical Researchand Biotechnology Center 5
The BRBC's scientific program will be composed of eight research areas that epitomize the most important fields in biomedical research. The center and its activities will thrust Italy to the forefront in developing the next generation of drugs, vaccines and medical devices, strategies in regenerative medicine, and therapies for disorders of brain function and behavior.
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHPROGRAMS AT THE CENTER
BRBC research programs will lead to new
discoveries and inventions, new intellectual
property, and the eventual yield of
marketable products and start-up enterprises.
The science developed will ultimately help
to prevent or cure disease, or assist with our
ability to improve the quality and longevity
of life. New devices, and strategies for
regenerative medicine, may one day render
organ transplantation obsolete.
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It is these hopes and ambitions that will fuel and inspire the work of junior and senior researchers in these
eight program areas:
1 Structural biology
Understanding the 3D architecture of macromolecules is essential to study diseases' molecular bases and for drug design and analysis. Proteins, RNA and DNA are able to create protein/protein or protein/nucleic acid complexes, move inside or outside cells, and perform their tasks thanks to their ability to coil into a specific 3D structure. Comparing normal conditions with pathological ones can highlight structural differences in the macromolecules, detect the causes of the diseases, and suggest potential approaches. X-ray crystallography and state-of-the-art technology supported by bioinformatics, allow BRBC researchers to carry out advanced studies on molecules that have not yet been characterized three-dimensionally, and that are of interest for other programs of the Center.
Computational biology
This branch of science offers essential support to many biomedical and biotech disciplines, as well. The computational use of all known data on molecules and their structure can generate predictive models providing data on the causes of diseases and suggesting target drugs. Computational biology reduces costs, experiment time and efforts required to confirm the accuracy of hypothetical models. At BRBC, many opportunities will be available for collaborations between computational biologists and other biologists involved in experimental research programs that may significantly benefit from computational biology.
Drug discovery
The most innovative approaches to develop new drugs do not focus their research on a single molecule but use data acquired from structural and computational biology, bioinformatics, genomics and proteomics to design and develop drugs with structures that can modify the behavior of specific molecules causing diseases. These areas of research offer important information to predict/evaluate the effectiveness of a given drug. Besides identifying therapies that strongly target the causes of a disease, biotechnologies have also paved the way for “customized” drugs to treat specific patients (i.e. with certain genetic characteristics) at the right time, with great benefits to their health. At BRBC, molecular biology knowledge and innovative molecular screening and synthesis methodologies will be implemented to identify and validate new molecular targets playing crucial roles in diseases, and to rapidly produce compounds that may be used as effective drugs.
Vaccine development
The first vaccines that stimulated the immune system and increased protection against selected diseases were based on inactive or weakened viruses unable to cause diseases but that increased immunity towards subsequent exposition to the viral strain of the pathogen. Today, vaccines can be based on recombinant proteins acquired inserting in proper vectors genes that encode pathogen-specific antigens. These are recognized as foreign proteins by the host's immune system cells that do not react against the proteins and also attack the infective microorganisms in the process. Recombinant vaccines are safe and relatively easy to produce and preserve. Using the most innovative and effective approaches, BRBC scientists will develop vaccines capable of fighting emergent infections. The vaccine development program will involve scientists from different fields committed to infectious disease research, with particular reference to epidemic diseases. The program will include research on infective agents that can be potentially used as weapons for bioterrorism. Research will be carried out in high-security BRBC laboratories designed for the treatment of pathogens with high risks of infection.
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Development of biomedical devices
Nanotechnologies have strongly influenced the development of biomedical devices that can be introduced in the human body to sense and therapeutically manipulate target physiopathologies. Research plans at BRBC include developing highly efficient devices that deliver drugs in cells, removing toxins, restoring the body's mechanical functions (e.g. sphincters, valves, alveoli), and sensing and adjusting hormone levels (e.g. insulin levels). These devices will use DNA as an electric conductor, nanoparticles as nanosensors, and will rely on molecular “motors” to move “materials” inside and outside the cells.
Regenerative medicine and tissue engineering
Through multiple technological approaches including tissue engineering, this line of research will stimulate the regeneration of certain cell populations and re-establish the structure and functions of malformed, damaged or degenerate tissues and organs. For this purpose, the program will make use of the significant progress recently achieved in the culture and isolation of diverse cellular histotypes, in stem cell identification (totipotent, lineage-specific, inducible etc.), and developing new biomaterials and scaffolds with different structural and biological characteristics. The tissue engineering approaches in which cells are associated with biomaterials involve the cooperation of biologists and bioengineers in the research of 3D biocompatible matrices for appropriate exchange of nutrients and gasses, and integration of the engineered product in the surrounding tissue.
Molecular imaging
Non-invasive imaging allows to identify molecular damage leading to diseases, molecular evolution of diseases and their possible treatment. Research at BRBC will involve the expression of individual genes and the visualization of intracellular processes: the observation of the gene expression of living subjects through (MRI) is a rapidly developing technology that will allow BRBC researchers to monitor the status of therapeutic gene delivery in the brain and other parts of the body. Researchers will utilize in vivo and non-invasive imaging methods to visualize the duration of expression of specific genes in a tumor, allowing an immediate test of sensitivity or resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. This program will utilize static and functional MRI to monitor infiltration of immune cells into transplanted organs to detect the earliest signs of rejection thus improving the management of transplant recipients.
Neuroscience
Neuroscience activity at BRBC will focus on how the brain develops and how the nervous system can degenerate. This program will use powerful methods and technologies to visualize normal brain structures and functions at the cellular and molecular levels, and better identify the abnormalities that cause neurodegenerative disorders. Researchers at BRBC will study how the brain structure gives rise to behavior, mood and emotions. This knowledge will help develop plans of care to prevent and treat neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders.
Some research programs will include pre-clinical studies on animal models of human diseases, which will be carried out at BRBC's animal facilities and operating areas.
Moreover, will:
Ÿ Develop medical products and devices to provide a basis for future growth of Italy's biotechnology industry (including companies directly spun-off from BRBC discoveries and inventions, as well as the center's intellectual property, which would be licensed to other companies, both nationally and internationally).
Ÿ Develop the venture capital industry in Sicily by earning a reputation as a place with the available resources and capabilities to attract new businesses. Increased employment and tax revenues will result from the presence of these new businesses.
Ÿ Provide management and leadership development locally for the biotechnology industry.
Ri.MED's BRBC
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Laying the foundations
The foundations for creating a world-
class research centre and biotech industry
in Sicily are already being laid. Since
2008, Ri.MED has provided intensive
postdoctoral training fellowships in each
of the BRBC's eight research lines to a
select group of researchers. These
Ri.MED fellows are set to form the core
of the future BRBC research team. After
an initial research period at the University
of Pittsburgh, Ri.MED fellows may
choose to continue with research in other
centers in Italy and elsewhere in Europe,
a process that is also designed to facilitate
the creation of a strong international
research network.
Annual Ri.MED symposiums held each
year in Palermo have become an
important appointment for young
researchers and international experts to
discuss the latest developments in
biomedical research and biotechnology.
The Ri.MED fellowship and the possibility of becoming a part of this giant research center in Sicily represented a unique opportunity, and the fellowship has been a rewarding experience on both personal and professional levels. My research is aimed at cancer therapy based on immunology, with the hope a vaccine could be developed against cancer that could be widely applied in the future.
Sandra Cascio, Ri.MED Fellow
The Biomedical Researchand Biotechnology Center 9
Ri.MED can leverage on the University of
Pittsburgh's strong track record in the promotion
of public health and its position at the forefront of
biomedical research. The University of Pittsburgh
has numbered among the top 10 recipients of
funding from National Institutes of Health (NIH)
since 1997 and ranked sixth in fiscal year 2011.
UPMC is also one of the top 10 hospitals in the
United States, according to the 2012 ranking of
the U.S. News and World Report. The University
of Pittsburgh and UPMC will support the Ri.MED
Foundation in setting up the BRBC, supplying
know-how and management experience and
guaranteeing the coordination of research activity.
The Italian government and the University of
Pittsburgh have already joined forces to offer
state-of-the-art health care in Sicily, and planning
for the BRBC began in 2005 after the Italian
government and UPMC saw the positive results of
their public-private partnership at the Palermo
transplant center known as ISMETT (Istituto
Mediterraneo per i Trapianti e Terapie ad Alta
Specializzazione). Over the past decade, ISMETT
has become one of the leading organ transplant
centers in Europe and a major referral center for
other Mediterranean countries. The ISMETT
hospital will provide one of the clinical venues in
which Ri.MED discoveries may be tested.
From a scientific point of view, the research opportunities offered under Ri.MED are very interesting, but the social implications of Ri.MED were also extremely important to me. Bringing in a highly educated workforce of this size in an economically depressed region like Sicily can really make a difference. And given the dimensions of the project, it should help foster the biotech industry in the entire country.
Antonio D'Amore, Ri.MED Fellow, whose research involves combining advanced biomaterials and innovative tissue engineering approaches to regenerate the compromised function of cardiovascular system organs
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Investing in Italy and Sicily
The BRBC represents a significant investment in biotechnology on the part of the Italian
government. The market for the discoveries and innovations of this industry is as large as the
world's population, assuming that virtually everyone hopes for a longer life of higher quality.
Cities where this industry has taken hold have seen the emergence of thousands of high-
paying jobs, thereby promoting regional economic health.
Investing in the research, discoveries, and innovations undertaken at this center will provide
the following short- and long-term returns to the citizens of Italy and Sicily:
Ÿ Generation of additional economic benefits to the area as a result of money spent on
operating this new facility (salaries, suppliers, retailers, hotels, hospitals, etc.).
Ÿ Employment for 6oo people.
Ÿ Attraction of Italian scientists currently working abroad back to Italy.
Ÿ Growth and diversification of the Sicilian economy.
Ÿ Improvement of life expectancy and the quality of life regionally and beyond.
Ÿ Strengthening of Italy's stature and visibility in the international scientific community.
Ÿ Greater size, scope, and critical mass of scientists and biomedical/ biotechnology research
projects than anywhere else in Italy, amassing a great amount of intellectual capital in the
region.
Ÿ More rapid results at lower investment and with a significant increase in scientific progress
by leveraging the collective resources of the BRBC, UPMC, and the University of
Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPSOM) to address the most challenging, complex, and
profound issues in the biomedical field
Ri.MED Governance (Margin)
The founder of the Ri.MED Foundation is the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. The
Foundation is fully funded by the Italian government. Member partners also include: the
Presidency of the Region of Sicily, Italy's National Research Council (CNR), the University of
Pittsburgh, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The Foundation is
managed by a board of directors responsible for setting the strategic direction of the
Foundation. The board of directors has appointed a scientific committee that chooses the
participants of the Ri.MED fellowship program, and will plan the scientific activity of BRBC
and manage the Foundation's research protocols.
