With Fondazione Roma the integrated research and care centre
di Beatrice Passarelli
T he Campus Bio-Medico University Polyclinic Foundation and the Campus-Bio-Medico University of Rome, supported by Fondazione Roma, are creating the integrated Center for research and treatment of Alzheimer's disease which will be dedicated to early diagnosis and therapy of the most common form of dementia in the population.
The distinctive feature of the Center will be integration, based on a holistic approach to patient care and assistance which provides a strong synergy between research activities, clinical activities with a multidisciplinary approach and advanced instrumental diagnostics, with the aim of arriving at a timely diagnosis of the disease and to identify personalized and effective therapies. The preclinical research phase will be directed by prof.
Marcello D'Amelio, research coordinator of the Department of Medicine and Surgery and head of the Molecular Neuroscience Research Unit of theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma. “Thanks to the identification of new biomarkers in the preclinical phase of the disease, it will be possible to intervene promptly to significantly and in a targeted manner affect the progression of the disease” commented Prof. D'Amelio.
From a clinical point of view, people with cognitive disorders will be able to carry out all the necessary tests in a single facility, under the direction of the prof. Vincenzo Di Lazzaro, director of the Neurology Unit of the Campus Bio-Medico University Polyclinic Foundation.
“The close collaboration between basic researchers and clinicians involved in diagnostic-therapeutic management will be the keystone of the project. Attention to caregivers will also be fundamental” underlined the prof. Di Lazzaro.
Thanks to the support of Fondazione Roma, latest generation instruments will be available, such as 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance which, with high image resolution, will allow the study with maximum accuracy of brain areas potentially involved in the early stages of the disease but which are difficult to explore with techniques conventional.
In addition to allowing the diagnostic classification of the patient, the investigations carried out will provide useful data for research, triggering a virtuous mechanism in which clinical knowledge will be precious for the growth of basic research and the results of preclinical studies can be immediately usable to improve the diagnostic-therapeutic approach.
The construction project will last five years and includes funding of two million euros from Fondazione Roma, through the Biomedical University Foundation. “With its support for this important project, the Rome Foundation places a new piece in the mosaic of tackling the serious and widespread pathology” underlined the President of the Rome Foundation Franco Parasassi.