Milan, 25 March (beraking latest news Salute) – There are 133 Italian and foreign doctors and researchers. Distinguishing features: they have under their slow pioneering projects in oncology, cardiovascular disease, neuroscience and nutrigenomics. These are the brains awarded with the grants of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation. Today the ceremony for the delivery of the bags for the year 2021, live streaming on the Foundation’s channels. In detail, there are 110 post-doctoral researchers, 79 of whom are women – average age 36.5 years – plus 23 training and specialization grants. Added to this number is the support for the European School of Molecular Medicine (Semm), which welcomes 116 PhD students; the funding of 15 research projects, 3 international projects and 4 treatment protocols in pediatric oncology.
Because scientific research, recalls Paolo Veronesi, president of the Foundation, “represents an investment for the future of all of us. The health emergency from Covid-19 that we are experiencing – continues the director of the Surgical Breast Division of the European Institute of Oncology ( Ieo) of Milan – reminds us of the importance and fundamental role of independent scientific research, a sector that is too often forgotten, but which makes us understand how much the progress of science is also strategic for the development of our country. collective “.
And “precisely for this reason the Foundation continues to maintain its commitment by funding the best researchers and projects of the highest scientific profile which also aim to identify effective measures to protect the most fragile individuals, such as cancer patients or patients suffering from chronic diseases with an immune system weakened and therefore exposed to various risk factors “. The total investment in research of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation for the year 2021 is equal to 6.2 million euros. Since 2003, the year of its birth, the institution has supported 1,895 researchers and 135 scientific projects.
“The world of scientific research and medicine is going through a period of real revolution – reasons Chiara Tonelli, president of the Scientific Committee of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation and professor of Genetics at the University of Milan – The Foundation supports a new mentality that sees laboratory research supported and projected towards the prevention and treatment of diseases and, precisely for this reason, this year too we believe and support the growth and training of a new generation of scientists capable of thinking and acting at the same time as researchers and clinicians , committed to finding immediate care solutions “.
“There can be no scientific development that is not at the same time also an ethical progress”, is the food for thought brought by Carlo Alberto Redi, president of the Ethics Committee of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation and full professor of Zoology and Developmental Biology at the University of Studies di Pavia, who talks about the importance of developing “new tools that help political decision-makers, society and individuals to make increasingly conscious choices for the common good”.
During the event there will be space for an in-depth study on the importance of scientific research, with Senator Emma Bonino and Elisabetta Dejana, head of the Ifom research program ‘The vascular system of cancer’ and full professor at the Department of Genetic Immunology and Pathology at the University of Uppsala (Sweden).
And there will be stories: like that of Marta Casiraghi, Pink Ambassador of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation, a former patient who, thanks to scientific research, defeated ovarian cancer; and Anna Julie Peired, a researcher financed for 4 years and winner of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation Award 2021, who, thanks to the funding, will be able to continue her career in Italy. Marta Anna Kowalik and Ombretta Melaiu were also awarded with the award dedicated to the best scientific publications of 2020 signed by researchers supported by the Foundation.
Franca Fagioli, director of the Pediatric Oncohematology Department and Transplant Center of the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital in Turin and member of the Scientific Committee of the Veronesi Foundation, will instead recall how important research is for pediatric oncology, especially during this health emergency. And the parents of Pietro Martini, a boy who died in 2012 from a tumor, will testify to the great need to continue to support scientific progress with strength and unity.