on January 31, 2014
Research in Ticino awarded at the EPFL
The 2013 Franco Regli prize for research on neurodegenerative diseases was attributed to a scientific paper presented by Prof. Adriano Aguzzi from the ETH Zurich and to another one presented by Dr. Paolo Paganetti from the Laboratory of Experimental Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland together with Prof. Maurizio Molinari from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Bellinzona affiliated to the Università della Svizzera italiana. The Franco Regli Prize for research on neurodegenerative diseases is awarded on the recommendation of the Board of Trustees composed of Professors Franco Regli , Pierre Magistretti , Patrice Guex and Maria Cristina Donati-Regli and Lucien Masmejan. The award ceremony will take place on January 31 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent form of dementia that generally affects people over 65 years of age. The number of people suffering from this disease is currently estimated at 30 million worldwide and 110’000 in Switzerland. Given the increase of the average age of the population, it is estimated that the number of people affected by this severely debilitating disease will double by 2030 and reach 100 million in 2050. For this reason, the development of new diagnostic methods allowing to identify the early symptoms of the disease and of new therapeutic approaches that would make possible to slow down the progression of the disease or to cure it, are a priority in biomedical research.
The work presented by Paganetti and Molinari shows, thanks to a gene therapy-based approach, that the presence of a specific antibody in the brain blocks the formation of senile amyloid plaques, the major pathological features of Alzheimer’s disease and Down’s syndrome. The results confirm the validity of these therapeutic approaches based on the use of antibodies, thus giving a further boost for the clinical use of such therapies to combat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. This project was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, by Mrs. Alessandra, and by the Ricerca sulle malattie Neurodegenerative, Comel, Gabriele and Gelu Foundations.
Maurizio Molinari, born in Lugano, received his PhD in Biochemistry at ETH Zurich in 1995. He worked at the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Padua and later at the Department of Biochemistry at the ETH Zurich. Since October 2000 he has been director of the laboratory at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona. The studies carried out in his group have made a significant contribution to the understanding of the mechanisms that allow the production of proteins in mammalian cells and of the mechanisms that allow the cells to eliminate aberrant, potentially toxic, proteins. Maurizio Molinari has received the 2002 Science Award from the Foundation for the Study of Neurodegenerative Diseases, the 2002 Kiwanis Club Award for Biomedical Sciences, the 2006 Friedrich-Miescher Award and the 2007 Aetas Research Award. In 2008 he was appointed Adjunct Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
Paolo Paganetti, born in Locarno, received his PhD in Biochemistry at the ETH Zurich in 1990 for a scientific research carried out at the Brain Research Institute, University of Zurich. He pursued his training in molecular and cellular biology at the Stanford University in California. In 1992 he founded a research group for new therapies against Alzheimer’s disease at the Sandoz Research Institute in Bern. Later, as director of the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, he supervised the development of innovative therapies and diagnostic methods for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases. In this position he also managed major academic collaborations with the Neuroscience Center Zurich and the Harvard University in Boston. Since September 2013 he is Coordinator of the Laboratory of Experimental Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, part of the Cantonal Hospital (EOC).
