The Advanced Biomedical Research Foundation is a center of excellence and collaboration between the public and private sectors. Its ambitious aim is to eradicate diseases that are still incurable. The Foundation is based on the efforts of a dedicated team of around 150 researchers coordinated by a scientific committee including three Nobel prize winners and is supported by a host of prominent figures in local business and politics who believe in the importance of scientific progress. The main aim of the project being carried forward by Fondazione Zegna and Fondazione per la Ricerca Biomedica Avanzata is the development of innovative strategies – based on a direct link between research and treatment – to provide diagnosis and cure of prostate cancer. The European Union sees 85,000 new cases of this disease every year, half of which in an advanced state requiring highly complex treatment and without much probability of cure. Progress is being made in medical research to find early methods of diagnosis and thereby gain deeper understanding of the problems. But it’s important for research to be immediately clinically applied in experiments that may yield innovative new treatments for patients. The Project’s doctors, in fact, divide their time between clinical practice and laboratory research into experimental models as similar as possible to patients’ actual situations. The Zegna Foundation supported the Advanced Biomedical Research Foundation by funding the Urological Malignancies Lab, directed by Prof. Francesco Pagano and Dr. Mariangela Mancini, for three years. The Project was completed in 2004.
