IBSA FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP: THE 6 YOUNG TALENTS OF THE 2021 EDITION AWARDED

Applications from 23 countries, 160 total projects, of which almost 70% by female researchers: these are the numbers of the ninth edition of the IBSA Foundation for Scientific Research Fellowships. Through this annual programme, IBSA Foundation aims to support young talents who stand out for their skills and for particularly prominent projects, which in the future could change the treatment of specific conditions.

The 2021 edition offered six scholarships for researchers under 40, from universities worldwide. The scholarships, each worth € 30,000, awarded the most deserving and innovative projects in five scientific areas: dermatology, endocrinology, fertility/urology, pain medicine/orthopaedics/rheumatology and regenerative medicine (special edition 2021).

“Believing in the future means recognising today’s talents and helping them pursue the path that will lead them to make a difference tomorrow”, explained Silvia Misti, Director of IBSA Foundation. “The work we carry out at IBSA Foundation for Scientific Research is precisely that of supporting research and the people who conduct it. With the Fellowship program, we intend to reward those projects that could change the treatment of certain conditions in the future”.

THE “NEW FRONTIERS IN REGENERATIVE MEDICINE” FORUM

The award ceremony of the 2021 Fellowships inaugurated the New Frontiers In Regenerative Medicine forum, held on April 14, 2022, in Rome by the Accademia Medica di Roma and IBSA Foundation. In addition to representing the “special edition” scientific area of the 2021 Fellowships, regenerative medicine was the main theme of the forum, which aimed to present the state of the art and the latest discoveries in this important field of study. In fact, regenerative medicine is one of the most interesting sectors of modern medicine, which studies the testing of increasingly innovative technologies used to repair or replace irremediably compromised organs and tissues.

THE WINNERS OF THE 2021 FELLOWSHIPS

The following people were awarded the scholarships of the Fellowhip 2021 project:

• Alpaslan Tasdogan, Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Essen, Germany

Project title: Targeting T Cell Metabolism for Improvement of Cancer Immunotherapy in Human Melanoma Patients;

• Diana Farhat, Interface de Recherche Fondamentale et Appliquée en Cancérologie U1113 Inserm, Strasbourg, France

Project title: Role of the thyroid hormone nuclear receptor TRα1 in the plasticity of the colon cancer stem cells;

• Kathrin Tomasek, Prof. John McKinney, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

Project title: How polybacterial interactions shape urinary tract infections and antibiotic treatment outcomes;

• Jun Zhou, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Project title: Amelioration of osteoarthritis with exogenous circular RNA using hybrid nano-delivery platform;

• Marianna Cosentino, Laboratory of Translational Cardiomyology, Department of Development and Regeneration, Stem Cell Research Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium

Project title: A vascularised muscle engineered tissue (X-MET) as a cardiac patch for myocardial infarction repair;

• Barbara Peruzzi, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy

Project title: Study on the effects mediated by combined mechanical stimulations on the generation of mesenchymal stromal cell-derived-ECM for regenerative medicine.

ALL READY FOR THE 2022 EDITION

IBSA Foundation will support scientific research and young talents for the 2022 edition too, with a new Fellowship call, and will be offering six new € 30,000 scholarships, with a special edition dedicated to Healthy Aging.

Projects should be submitted by December 31, 2022, via the dedicated platform.