In 2017 the Department was selected, for the first time, as a Department of Excellence.
This recognition was confirmed in 2022 for the five-year period 2023 - 2027 and made it possible to acquire resources to enhance research and reward the talent and ideas of researchers.
The project of the Department of Maternal-Child and Adult Medical and Surgical Sciences focuses on the creation of an incubator and accelerator for advanced research and training, the "Centre for Multi-Omic and Precision Medicine", founded on two strongly integrated pillars and devoted one to the development of new diagnostic approaches and the other to new "personalized" molecular, cellular and gene-based therapies.
The ambition of the project is to impact clinical areas that are still neglected and/or orphaned: onco-haematological, immunological, genetic and chronic diseases; topics of great health, socioeconomic and scientifically challenging relevance.
The project, structured according to a detailed timetable and various integrated work-packages (WPs) with targeted and verifiable objectives, will involve departmental researchers, already leaders in their respective fields, who will be joined by new teachers, biotechnologists, doctors and students. and PhD students selected over the next five years.
The teams involved in the Center will develop the WPs in existing research facilities further enhanced with new cutting-edge equipment in the field of imaging, cytometry and genomics. The development and sustainability of the Center will be ensured by synergies with projects of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) already assigned to departmental teams within the National Research and Development Centers-National Champions and Extended Partnerships, by consolidated partnerships with the Modena biomedical supply chain and existing collaborations with national and international pharmaceutical companies.
“It is a result of great prestige and importance – states Prof. Antonello Pietrangelo, Director of the Department – ​​which rewards all the Department's staff and which projects the Department to the national top, with a view to further growth and development for the next five years. years. Special thanks go to those who worked with me on the drafting and finalization of the project.”
The Departments of Excellence represent an innovative intervention with strong financial support, provided for by law 232 of 2016 (2017 budget law). The aim of the intervention is to identify and finance, every five years and within the 14 CUN areas, the best 180 Departments of state universities. These are Departments that stand out for the quality of the research produced and the quality of the development project, to which an annual budget of 271 million euros is allocated.