The  “Health Extended ALliance for Innovative Therapies, Advanced Labresearch, and Integrated Approaches of Precision Medicine” project, acronym “HEAL ITALIA” of which Università di Palermo is a public subject Coordinator and IFO-IRE IRCCS represents the first Italian Foundation that coordinates a qualified multidisciplinary network of Universities, IRCCS and Enterprises, scientists, technologists and young researchers who share knowledge, research and innovative technologies in order to bring our National Health System into the contemporary era of Precision Medicine through new methods, new services and, above all, an important clinical data network to support translational research for advanced diagnosis and therapies in the fight against cancer and cardiovascular, metabolic and rare diseases.

The project is conceived with an interdisciplinary holistic vision, able to combine fundamental and translational research with technology transfer, exploiting the capacities of the main actors in the academic, clinical and private sectors. It involves research and development activities at eight Spoke, coordinated by HUB, which acts as the implementing entity.

Inizio Progetto: 01/12/2022
Fine Progetto: 30/11/2025

The objective of the HEAL ITALIA research project is to create research chains in which public and private sectors work together to support the implementation of processes and the production of products leading to precision medicine. To provide new, cost-effective and evidence-based predictive and non-invasive diagnostic pathways for faster prediction, detection and monitoring, early, accurate, accessible and affordable for monogenic (rare), polygenic (cardiovascular and metabolic) and cancer diseases, as well as to identify innovative and effective therapeutic approaches.

The Mission of HEAL ITALIA is therefore to facilitate the transition towards cost and time efficient methods and tools, allowing early diagnosis and frequent screening of patients, two of the milestones in precision medicine approaches.

The specific arms of the project are articulated into distinct spokes (n° 8), highly inter-related between each other both at technical and translational level, all pointing to all invetigated, as dispected in figure below.

IFO-IRE as Affiliated Spoke participates with its research activities within the Spoke 2, 3, 7 and 8 of the project.

Contacts:

Scientific Director: Prof. Gennaro Ciliberto, gennaro.ciliberto@ifo.it

For the spoke 2: Dr. Maurizio Fanciulli, maurizio.fanciulli@ifo.it

For the Spoke 3: Dr. Anna Teresa Bagnato, annateresa.bagnato@ifo.it, Dr. Giovanni Blandino giovanni.blandino@ifo.it

For the spoke 7: Dr. Giulia Piaggio, giulia.piaggio@ifo.it, Dr. Silvia Soddu, silvia.soddu@ifo.it

For the Spoke 8: Prof. Gennaro Ciliberto

The HEAL ITALIA project can help to strengthen the research and innovation chain in the field of precision medicine, also through active participation in the development of value chains considered strategic for the country, identifying and reducing inequalities between North and South Italy, developing a roadmap for interregional collaboration to define evidence-based pathways that are easily used in clinical practice.

The impact of the HEAL ITALIA research project will be measured in the capacity to create research collaboration and consolidated networks, in which public and private work synergistically to support the implementation of processes and the production of products for Precision Medicine.