Telethon Marathon was set up in United States in 1966, to raise funds for muscular dystrophy research. The first Italian TV marathon in 1991 marked the official formation of the Telethon Committee, chaired by Susanna Agnelli and now called Fondazione Telethon. Since its start up in 2000, the Zegna Foundation supported Professor Cossu’s work in the field of muscular dystrophy, through Telethon. It was a large scale research project, focusing on stem cells, carried out at the Istituto San Raffaele and the Policlinico in Milan, Ospedale San Matteo in Pavia and Università La Sapienza in Rome. The experimental program produced some exceptional results: in 2002 Prof. Cossu identified a new type of stem cell in fetal blood which can regenerate muscular tissue destroyed by the disease (published in Science, a prestigious scientific journal).