Prague, April 19 (CTK) – Italian scientists and postgraduate students’ team works in the International Clinical Research Centre (ICRC) of the St Ann Teaching Hospital in Brno, the second largest town in Czechia, within the Magnet project funded by the Czech Education Ministry, daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote on Thursday.
The team studies heart and nervous system diseases, focusing on the molecular causes of ageing. The aim is not to prolong people’s lives, but to extend the healthy period of their lives, doctor Manlio Vinciguerra, the head of the team, told LN last year.
Vinciguerra, who comes from Sicily, was employed by the University College London (UCL) before he came to the ICRC in 2017. He has conducted over one hundred studies and was quoted 3,000 times in scientific literature.
The Education Ministry granted 178 million crowns for the Magnet project, which is to last six years.
“We are hosting a total of 18 Italian scientists and postgraduate students,” ICRC director for international cooperation Rene Samek told LN at a Tuesday press conference.
With regard to the fact that there are about 30 Italian scientists in the country permanently, Brno and its biomedical centre belongs to their biggest employers in the country, LN writes.
There are ten women and eight men in the team.
Viola Galligioni, another leader in the team, heads the ICRC animal centre, which conducts cardio and nervous system studies on animals such as pigs, sheep, mice and laboratory rats.
Giancarlo Forte heads a research group studying cardiovascular systems and mechanobiology. He is also being published in prestigious journals such as Nature Communications and ACS Nano.
Overall, the Italian team took part in more than 50 scientific studies during the past three years.
Since 2016, the team has attained grants worth over 200 million crowns in total for the centre and the Italian postgraduate students are being repeatedly assessed among the top students, Galligioni told LN.
Italian Ambassador to Prague Aldo Amati says there are approximately 6,000 Italians living and working the Czech Republic. Italy seeks to fund another lecturer of the Italian language at Brno’s Masaryk University, as well, LN cites Amati.
