UPMC promote the “Innovation Life Sciences Hub” network

LIFE FOR SCIENCE 4.0, THE FIRST INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM FOR RESEARCH STARTING IN SOUTHERN ITALY AND TRAVELLING UP NORTH

• This initiative promoted by UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) brings together 25 national and international actors, involving 8 Italian regions (Sicily, Campania, Puglia, Lazio, Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont and Lombardy), in addition to the U.S.A. and UAE.
• Based on the concepts of Open Innovation and Open Science, a virtual hub of excellence will be created in the scope of Life Sciences 4.0 with the aim of pooling research, products and services currently fragmented and inaccessible to citizens, maximizing the outcomes’ potential exchanging know-how and focusing on a shared path.

• The project effectively responds to the challenges of the PNRR (Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan), including strengthening the supply chain of basic, preclinical, and clinical research, innovation of health services, and telemedicine.

Focus on research, technology transfer, service improvement, increased competitiveness of the production sector: An integrated global health enterprise affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) collects the input from research institutions and businesses in Southern Italy and promotes “Innovation Life Sciences Hub”, the first network in Southern Italy for experimental research and industrial development in biotechnology and life sciences.

Bringing together universities, research institutes, hospitals and companies in Sicily, Campania, Lazio, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Puglia, Lombardy and Piedmont, the U.S.A. and the United Arab Emirates, the network aims to set up a regional and interregional Big & Open Data hub of excellence, able to compete with the major European and international scientific districts, to attract the main industrial players in pharmaceuticals, biomedicine and health 4.0 technology, with particular attention to proximity health and smart hospitals.

Committed to promoting an innovative ecosystem in Italy in which public and private partnerships of excellence operate in synergy, the network will support the experimentation of new models for innovative health services, which also take into account the COVID-19 emergency, and bring research where it is missing, offer quality care, and rapidly provide increasingly more personalized and accessible care to all citizens, regardless of where they live.

The main objectives of the network are:

• Create a technology infrastructure that supports a Health 4.0, introducing innovative technology in each center of the network: services, products, financed projects, high-specialty laboratories.
• Promote new R&D activities and facilitate the transfer of results to public and private entities.
• Create a multicenter hub with new “Laboratories 4.0”, in particular, Artificial Intelligence labs for Health. Laboratories and services of big data and machine learning for the health biotechnology and industry. A computational medicine and simulation platform for new molecules and new drugs. A nuclear medicine platform promoting smart systems for innovative radiotherapy. A platform to develop innovative technologies for nanomedicine and advanced therapies. R&D laboratories in the field of robotics for rehabilitation and minimally invasive surgery. A bio-incubator aimed at attracting scientists, researchers and professionals currently abroad back to Sicily.
• Promote the experimentation and scalability of pilot projects (telemedicine supporting new models of community medicine) and smart specialization supply chains for specific areas (personalized medicine in oncology, emergency medicine, gender medicine).

Big data, IOT and AI are key elements of the network, consistently with smart strategies to meet the challenges our country is facing, such as strengthening telemedicine and community care relaunched by the PNRR and by the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programs. By favoring quality services and optimizing processes linked to the implementation of new technologies, the project will consolidate an innovative “Made in Italy” health care supply chain.

Partners:

IRIB – CNR

INFN Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Laboratori Nazionali del Sud

Centro di Competenza BIREX “Big Data Innovation & Research Excellence”

Fondazione Ri.MED

Azienda Ospedaliera Cannizzaro Catania – UOC DI Ginecologia ed Ostetricia

National Institutes of Health (NIH)/Center for Cancer Research (CCR)

Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School

SIDRA Medicine

Università di Palermo (Dipartimenti DiChirons e BIND e Centro Servizi Aten)

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Università Unicamillus

Università degli Studi di Catania (Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale – Centro di Oncologia ed Ematologia Sperimentale – A.O.U. Policlinico “G. Rodolico – S. Marco” Catania)

Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Bio-Oncologia

Alleanza Contro il Cancro

IOM

Università di Torino (pending admission)

Università Humanitas (pending admission)

Neuroscience Institute Cavalieri Ottolenghi (pending admission)

IRCCS Sant’Orsola (pending admission)