The Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences of the University of Brescia has been awarded funding for the 2023–2027 period under the “Fund for the Financing of Departments of Excellence” (Law No. 232 of 11 December 2016), which allocates a total of €271 million to support departments of Italian state universities distinguished by excellence in research quality, scientific, organizational and educational planning, and research activities related to “Industry 4.0”.
The Department will receive approximately €8.675 million during the 2023–2027 period.
The project is based on the following three objectives:
Objective 1 aims to develop an integrated platform for medical informatics to provide structural support for clinical research, advanced education, and technology transfer, promoting precision medicine and the systematic use of data and computational models in clinical and management decision-making. The work package aims to reduce the gap between clinical practice and technological skills by training healthcare professionals able to work in multidisciplinary environments. It will enhance shared infrastructures, including an interoperable clinical repository, a laboratory dedicated to data analysis and the development of decision support systems, and an advanced medical simulation center for the safe and continuous training of healthcare professionals.
Objective 2 aims to develop a platform for applied neuroscience as an integrated infrastructure for bidirectional translational research between laboratory, hospital, and community settings, addressing national and international healthcare priorities related to chronic diseases, clinical complexity, and the increasing prevalence of nervous system disorders. The platform integrates basic and clinical expertise to develop functional assessments and personalized rehabilitation interventions based on advanced neurotechnologies and multimodal approaches, ensuring high internal and external validity. Activities are focused on the identification of neurophysiological biomarkers for deficit characterization, monitoring of clinical progression, and prediction of therapeutic outcomes, as well as on the development and validation of individualized rehabilitation protocols, including telemedicine solutions, in synergy with the computational methods developed within the Medical Informatics Platform. The operational model is structured along a continuum ranging from pre-clinical human research, to explanatory clinical research in hospital settings, and finally to pragmatic clinical research in community settings, ensuring transferability and generalizability of results. The objective is supported by the establishment of a basic research laboratory for the study of cognitive and motor mechanisms and neural plasticity, a hospital-based clinical laboratory for testing innovative rehabilitation protocols according to a biopsychosocial model, and a territorial neuroscience network for the implementation and evaluation of interventions in real-world settings. This approach strengthens the integration between research, clinical practice, and healthcare services, positioning the platform as a distinctive and highly innovative initiative at both national and international level..
- Objective 3 aims to establish a Platform for Advanced Immunotherapies through the creation of an Immune-Target-Therapy Center within the hospital-university campus of the ASST Spedali Civili di Brescia, with the goal of providing an integrated framework for clinical research and its translation into innovative healthcare pathways in the field of precision immunotherapy. The platform is designed as a multidisciplinary network based on the sharing and strengthening of existing clinical, biological, and technological resources already recognized as national and international reference centers. It promotes synergies among different scientific and clinical disciplines and encourages collaborations with pharmaceutical companies and start-ups. The activities are focused on the development and validation of innovative therapeutic approaches, with particular attention to rare diseases and the identification of predictive biomarkers of clinical response, integrating basic research, translational research, and clinical trials. The platform includes both cellular immunotherapy, focused on CAR-T therapies and on the study of the biological, molecular, and clinical mechanisms underlying their efficacy, safety, and complications, also in synergy with advanced data analysis tools, and targeted molecular immunotherapies based on monoclonal antibodies and inhibitors of major immune pathways. A strong emphasis is placed on the identification of new circulating biomarkers for prognosis, monitoring, and treatment personalization. These activities also contribute to strengthening advanced education and specialist and doctoral training, consolidating the role of the Department as a center of excellence in clinical, scientific, and educational activities in the field of advanced immunotherapies.