RICERCA ITALIANA     

Centre for Bio-molecular Interdisciplinary Studies and Industrial Applications (CISI).

Università degli Studi di Milano

Abstract

1.The mission of the Centre for bio-molecular studies and industrial applications (CISI) will be to promote and co-ordinate research, technological development, and training activities of scientific and economic interest. Such definition of the mission of CISI closely follows the recommendation of the EU, the Italian Government and the Ministry of University (MURST). It is planned that CISI through the implementation of two key technological platforms (DNA chip technology and development of methods for combinatorial synthesis and high throughput screening of compounds with biological activity) will collaborate with a selected group of 12 industries on: assisted selection in crop species, specially relevant to Italian agriculture; DNA/RNA probe diagnostic systems for the medical and veterinary sciences; development of advanced scientific instrumentation based on Nucleic Acid Technology (NAT). These areas of activity are closely interconnected since they are based on: common scientific background, provided by a large group of scientists of international level; similar methodological approaches; state of the art of genomic studies in plant, micro-organisms, and humans, and a carefully planned strategy of industrial development.

2. Human and financial resources available to CISI will be: four groups of internationally known scientists and scholars from the medical, veterinary, chemistry and agriculture faculties of Milan University; the R&D personnel of 2>>>

Principal Investigator

Francesco SALAMINI Università degli Studi di MILANO

International Relationship

2.4 The interaction between CISI and other research and business-oriented institutions.

The V EU framework program of research has been mainly directed to promote the interaction between public research institutions and industry. The need for a more close collaboration between these two entities has also been stressed by the report on biotechnology of the Office of the Italian Prime Minister which has been previously cited (see section 2.2.1). The lack of collaboration, however, is not, by all means, the main obstacle for the development of biotechnology in Italy. One can note that research funds available for all areas of research are very scarce since Italy spends only a little more than 1% of its GIP in research, as compared with 2.8% in the U.S.A. and other major industrialised countries. In addition, research money is mainly funnelled into traditional "hard sciences" like physics. Italy is also notable for the almost complete absence of private risk capital invested in biotechnological companies. Thus the collaboration between public research and industry is not easy to achieve in this field, and it is not surprising that the Italian government is so keen to increase the interaction between industry and the largely unexploited intellectual capital of Italian Universities. A similar action, which has been recently promoted by the German government through a programme named BioRegio, has met with extremely encouraging success, since it has spun off a>>>

Research Objectives

2.2 Development, research, and organization of CISI, an Interdisciplinary Centre of Studies and Industrial applications.

2.2.1 Objectives.

The EU report on competitiveness of biotechnology in Europe (De Looze et al., Eu-CT 942032, 1996) has stressed the need for the European countries to promote biotechnology by an increase in the collaboration between public institutions and industry. In fact there is a major difference between Europe and U.S. in this field. Whereas Europe seems to be on the same level as the U.S. for the quality and strength of public research, the capability of developing extensive clinical studies and its potential market of more than 260 million people, the existence in the U.S. of a strong interaction between industry, government and University institutions, supported by a large amount of risk capital, has determined a gap between the two countries in the number and in the commercial value of biotechnology products on market. A similar report by a National Committee nominated by the Italian Prime Minister (1999) to provide suitable indications for the development of biotechnology in Italy has proposed the institution of a number of R&D "centres of excellence in biotechnology" as a major driving force to foster the development of this field in Italy.

Milan is the major industrial centre of Italy and the capital of Lombardy. In Milan there are 2778 companies operating in the agro-industry, 445 in the>>>