History
The recently established Center for Advanced Studies and Technology (CAST) is housed by a 13.500 m2 dedicated research building (Centro di Scienze dell’Invecchiamento [CeSI]). CeSI was built in the late 1990s with a €28.5 million grant from the Italian Government to the “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti (UdA), under the leadership of its Rector, Professor Franco Cuccurullo. CeSI has 4.400 m2 of basic research labs, 4.400 m2 of clinical research space and 4.700 m2 of centralized facilities and administrative offices. CeSI is endowed with €11 million worth of state-of-the-art instruments and special equipment, including core facilities [eg, proteomics, genomics, etc].
The Center of Excellence on Aging (CEA) was established in 2001 with the aim of focusing multidisciplinary research efforts at UdA on the aging process. The CEA research proposal was submitted in response to a competitive call by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) and selected for funding with a 3-year start-up grant to its PI, Professor Carlo Patrono. Three main areas were originally to be investigated within CEA: cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disorders and cancer in the elderly. Each area was targeted with aging-related research projects, by integrating basic and clinical research. A 30-research beds General Clinical Research Center (CRC) was established under the leadership of the late Professor Andrea Mezzetti, and was recently re-oriented towards a more focused scope by its current Director, Professor Agostino Consoli.
Research space within CeSI (now CAST) was allocated on a competitive basis to basic and clinical Research Groups working in the UdA Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy. CeSI was managed by a Steering Committee appointed by the UdA Rector and chaired by the late Professor Piero Musiani, the first CeSI Director. The Steering Committee members included the Dean of the Medical School, Professor Carmine Di Ilio, the CEA Scientific Coordinator, Professor Carlo Patrono, the Technical Coordinator, Mr Dante Tatone, and Professors Andrea Mezzetti and Stefano Iacobelli. Professor Musiani’s leadership was largely responsible for the growth of a culture inspired by scientific merit and international collaboration. Moreover, the existence of a common research framework, CEA, and its further funding by public and private grants allowed a number of shared initiatives to be developed, including a PhD Programme in Aging led by the late Professor Giovanni Davì, a Visiting Professor Lecture Series funded by a pool of drug companies, a Post-Doctoral Fellowship Programme, and CEA monthly conferences providing a forum for young researchers to present and discuss their ongoing research projects within a multidisciplinary environment. Over the next 10 years, these initiatives contributed to successful participation in 10 international projects funded by the European Commission FP5, FP6 and FP7 Programmes and by the National Institutes of Health, and publication of approximately 100 scientific papers in high impact journals (IF >10) and 8 patents.
Research labs without departmental boundaries allowed cross-fertilization of research ideas and methodologies from different disciplines, as well as cost containment through space- and time-sharing of costly facilities. Colocalization of basic and clinical research in one dedicated building allowed synergistic interactions between the two, with the ultimate goal of developing and testing innovative diagnostic and treatment paradigms.
CAST is interfaced with the Institute of Advanced Biomedical Technology (ITAB) and with the University Hospital within the same Campus. Several CAST Group Leaders hold clinical appointments at the University Hospital in Chieti or at the Civil Hospital in Pescara, allowing the recruitment of patients for clinical investigation and multicenter randomized trials. ITAB is a 5.000 m2 core facility co-funded by the University of Chieti and the European Union and devoted to basic and clinical research on brain imaging under the leadership of Professor Gianluca Romani. ITAB was part of the original CEA research project. ITAB is endowed with €9 million high-end instrumentation for functional neuroimaging including core facilities such as EEG-fMRI, MEG, HDEEG, NIRS, EEG-TMS.