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10th Annual Symposium Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Foundation For Advanced Scientific Research June 12-15, 2006 Grand Hotel Baia Verde, Catania, Italy (see photos) Celebrating a Decade of Extraordinary Science The Foundation Mission
The 10th Annual Symposium of the Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Foundation Symposium, entitled Celebrating a Decade of Extraordinary Science, demonstrates that grief can give rise to greatness.
Twelve years ago, Count Giovanni Auletta Armenise lost his beloved wife, Dianora Bertacchini, to a brain tumor that not even the best efforts of physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital could defeat. During her time at this Harvard Medical School teaching institution, the couple realized that improved treatments for this and other devastating diseases will be possible only if basic science research flourishes.
Following his wife’s death, the Count did more than mourn her loss. He worked closely with Daniel Tosteson, then Dean of Harvard Medical School, to set up a Foundation that would promote investigation of profound questions about the workings of life itself. Not only that, but they devised plans for creating new connections between basic scientists in Italy and at HMS. These two men “set a path that we could follow, evolve and expand upon,” current HMS Dean Joseph Martin said in his introductory remarks at this milestone symposium.
In the United States, the Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Foundation supports seven multidisciplinary research centers that involve more than 50 faculty members on the HMS quadrangle. These centers collaborate with Italian institutes and individual scientists, help train Italian postdoctoral fellows and junior scientists, participate in international research seminars and organize public conferences in Boston on a range of topics including neuroscience, systems biology, and aging.
Since 1997, 27 rising young researchers have received HMS Junior Faculty Awards underwritten by the Foundation. These two-year grants help recipients generate scientific publications and attract significant additional funding for their laboratories. Award-winners Azad Bonni, Tom Walz, David Rudner and Gahlit Lahav gave invited podium presentations at this year’s Symposium.
At Massachusetts General Hospital, the Foundation has provided support to 13 researchers studying neuro-oncology and related disorders; on hand for the Symposium was two-time recipient Verne Caviness.
In Italy, the Foundation has invested more than $12 million in scientific research since its inception. During the first five years, 56 scientists at five Italian research institutes received support from Collaborative Research Grants. This program made it possible for researchers in Rome, Milan, Turin and Padua to pursue research questions with new collaborators on the HMS Quad. Armenise support also helped create a new structural biology facility in Milan. Three of the original principal investigators – Jacopo Meldolesi, Giulia De Lorenzo, and Tullio Pozzan – participated in the 10th Annual Symposium.
Today, one of the Foundation’s proudest accomplishments is making it possible for young Italian scientists to establish laboratories and launch independent careers in their home country. Eight promising newcomers have received Career Development Program grants since 2001, and seven participated in the Symposium: Alberto Bacci, Stefano Casola, Davide Corona, Stefano Gustincich, Claudia Lodovichi, Carlo Sala and Rosella Visintin. All lead independent laboratories that are magnets for other young researchers, creating new opportunities for work and learning in Milan, Rome, Padua, Palermo and Trieste. Several of the career development awardees received graduate or postdoctoral training at HMS, and the Foundation presently underwrites two PhD candidates on the Quad. In all of Italy, this is one of only two initiatives aimed at helping this nation retain some of its best and brightest minds.
Dr. Martin emphasized that none of these programs would exist without the “incredible partnership” between Count Auletta Armenise and Dan Tosteson. Unfortunately, he told attendees, the former HMS Dean was injured in a fall on the eve of the Symposium and unable to participate. The Count ,however, was in the front row when his contributions to Italian science were formally recognized with the Targa della Presidenza della Repubblica, an award Italy’s President bestows only on people or institutions of outstanding merit. This surprise presentation was made on the President’s behalf by Tullio Pozzan, one of the original Armenise investigators in Italy. Pozzan is a professor at the University of Padova and the Venetian Institute for Molecular Medicine.
In addition to fueling research, the Foundation has been stimulating the flow of science news to the Italian public since 2000. The Science Writer Fellowship program has enabled 15 Italian journalists to attend annual symposia and travel to HMS, where they learn about science, make invaluable contacts and research articles while being hosted by the Office of Public Affairs. Fellows Daniela Cipolloni and Luca Sciortino participated in the 2006 Symposium; Antonio Carlo Larissa will join them at HMS.
Approximately 95 scientific participants traveled to the historic port city of Catania, on Silicy’s northeast coast, to celebrate the Armenise-Harvard Foundation’s first decade. Participants represented 15 centers, institutes and universities in Italy, three in the United States, and one in Switzerland. They gathered on the sunny terraces of the Grand Hotel Baia Verde in Catania, overlooking black lava cliffs and the blue Ionian Sea. This is one of three seas whose waves break on Sicily’s coasts, and the island’s language and culture are marked by a succession of different rulers – Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards.
Like Sicily itself, Celebrating a Decade of Extraordinary Science featured an exceptionally diverse and multicultural scientific program. Over the years, the Foundation has helped scientists explore topics in cancer biology, neuroscience, infectious disease, structural biology, genetics and genomics, systems biology, and integrative biology and physiology. The Symposium’s 24 featured speakers and 18 poster presenters who gave participants at least a taste of all those topics and more. The scientific program was organized by Steven Harrison, Peter Howley, Elio Raviola and John Flanagan of HMS. Following the keynote address, lectures were grouped into four sessions:
Membranes Cell Cycle and Gene Regulation Genes to Disease Signaling, Networks, and Cell-cell communication.
This report is structured along the same lines, and provides a brief introduction to each session and summaries of individual presentations. Symposium Pages
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About
the Symposium
