About us

Mission

To become the standard of excellence in biomedical research in the region, and through this, catalyze change leading to more research-based medicine in the healthcare system and improved population health.

Vision

The Institute will develop within the next ten years into one of the leading national biomedical research centers and will be widely recognized for the development and application of new models of principle-centered leadership in science.

Values

Pioneering spirit: To be innovative in our approaches to biomedical research as well as pioneer the establishment of collaborative strategies to achieve our highest priorities.

Team spirit: To adopt a synergistic approach that fully utilizes all capacities of a multidisciplinary team, in an environment based on trust, openness, respect and spirit of public service.

Goal oriented : Driving success by setting clear and compelling goals.

Passion for research: Discovering how the building blocks of life are involved in health and disease, without losing sight of the ethical dimension and the responsibility related to research. Obtaining extraordinary results in a responsible manner.

Highest quality: Striving to encourage continuous improvement of people and research based on effective and principle- and value-oriented processes.

Foundation for the Center for Biomedicine

The decision of the provincial government n. 4718 of 15. December 2008 foresees the establishment of a biomedical research center in South Tyrol. Following the decision, the partners in charge of the establishment of this center - South Tyrolean Health Service and EURAC - have mandated the EURAC-Institute of Genetic Medicine to serve as foundation for this new center.

The aim of this new center is to work actively with both the healthy and disease populations in collaboration with the hospitals and primary care practices to develop resources that can be used to drive biomedical discovery processes aimed at identifying factors that contribute to disease and developing innovative ways to use this information to promote better healthcare and population health. In a "double translation" strategy, scientific findings from the population will pass through the molecular research labs for further insight into possible roles in disease, eventually being "translated" into clinical utility. Likewise, results from disease-based research will pass through the molecular labs and from there be translated into utility for prevention-oriented population medicine programs. Such a double-way translation strategy will hopefully continuously provide insight that can be used to improve, on a more personal level, programs of translational medicine leading to better disease diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

All research areas which are to be further developed by the new center, are already existing within the EURAC-Institute of Genetic Medicine. Besides the main research focus in genomics, the scientists already work in the fields of bioinformatics, cardiovascular medicine and neuromedicine. We will continue to develop and expand research in these areas to meet the goals of performing cutting edge biomedical research and thereby meet the changing medical needs of the population in the "omics" era. Current activities aimed at increasing our research capacity for biomedical projects include further population-based longitudinal studies in South Tyrol (CHRIS-Study: cooperative health research in South Tyrol) the continuation of the genetic-epidemiological research with existing cross-sectional data from the Vinschgau-valley (MICROS), the increased collection of case-control biosamples and the setup of a regional biobank in South Tyrol.

In addition to the existing groups at the Institute, we aim to establish a "translational research group" which should become the interface between individual research groups, hospitals, healthcare practices and the population, working on the principles of synergy and cooperation to help facilitate the double translation strategy outlined above.