The personalized medicine is no longer an utopia, but a reality thanks to the scientific research and technological innovation in the medical field. This was discussed in Bari, on November 16th, 2015, at Salone degli Affreschi of the University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ during the final workshop “From Nucleic Acid to Personalized Medicine: Innovative approaches to Early Diagnosis and Therapy of Diseases At High Social Impact” of the project ” Verso la Medicina Personalizzata: Sviluppo di nuove molecole selettive per la cura del Neuroblastoma” funded by Fondazione CON IL SUD in reply to the call Sviluppo Capitale umano Alta Qualificazione 2011.
A process started in Bari, in May 2013, with the inaugural workshop of the project, which enabled two young Italian researchers under 40, Dr. Linda Piras and Dr. Maria Moccia, to come back to our country and to actively work in a research project developed by public Italian and foreign research centers (the Institute of Crystallography of the CNR of Bari, the Institute of Bioimaging and Biostructures of CNR of Naples and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland -Dublin), supported by the Italian Industrial Research and the Gianni Benzi Foundation.
The day, full of concrete opportunities of debates, has excited the participants of the scientific field and was focused on several aspects of the use of oligonucleotides in high social impact pathologies, from identification of specific sequences as markers of specific pathologies, to design and development of modified oligonucleotides with therapeutics and diagnostic applications.
The workshop was attended by experts from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, CNR, High-Tech District Biotechnology and Health (H-BIO Puglia), Gianni Benzi Foundation, University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’, University of Ferrara and the british company “DestiNA Genomics”.
What does personalized medicine mean and how much it is important in diseases affecting children, such as neuroblastoma? We interviewed Prof. Adriana Ceci, president of the Gianni Benzi Foundation: “Neuroblastoma is the most common childhood cancer after brain tumors. Unfortunately, effective treatments exist only for a portion of patients (between 30 and 50%). This is the reason why it is so important to carry out research that will lead to the development of effective therapies by means of the personalized medicine.
The new MYCN inhibitor, developed within this project, has the potential to become a good drug. The Gianni Benzi Foundation is interested in supporting this project as it has always been engaged in research activities related to the clinical development of orphan drugs for pediatric and rare diseases.”
What are the possible applications of these researches and which are the long term developments? We asked Dr. Michele Saviano, director of the Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council in Bari and project Coordinator about it: “The development of modified oligonucleotides is a field of great interest of application to get new drugs, highly selective and with reduced side effects, for the treat and the early diagnosis of diseases of high social impact (neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, etc.). The way to launch on the market drugs drawn on modified oligonucleotides is still long, but the knowledge and the scientific and technological skills gained in this project represent a fundamental support for the development of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the Puglia and Campania’s regions, with important economic and employment consequences”.
Here you can find the following interviews (in Italian):