Microscopic observations in a laboratory Prestigious award to Dr. Laura Pini of the University of Brescia. The researcher of the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences of the University of Brescia obtained the first prize for the best research project on the Alpha 1 Deficiency – Antitrypsin, banned at European level by the pharmaceutical multinational Talecris Biotherapeutics. The prize, worth 50,000 euros, will be used to develop the project itself. The results of the studies will be presented next year at the European Congress of Respiratory Medicine. Antitrypsin is a glycoprotein produced by the liver, but also by bronchial epithelial cells, which has the task of protecting the lung from the action of some enzymes produced by white blood cells. Alpha 1 deficiency is an inherited disease that causes severe pulmonary emphysema and severe liver disease. This pathology, in northern Italy, affects one subject for every 2,000 people and represents the best known and most frequent of the so-called "rare diseases". The study group, born in the 1st Medicine of the Spedali Civili of Brescia in the early 90s for the interest of prof. Vittorio Grassi and now led by prof. Claudio Tantucci, has progressively consolidated and has defined in the province of Brescia one of the most important cases at European level, obtaining recognition as a regional center of reference for this pathology, of which Dr. Luciano Rope. Nuccia Gatta, founder and president of the National Association of Patients with Alpha 1 - Antitrypsin Deficiency, also belongs to the Group. The Study Group of the University of Brescia also collaborates profitably with various realities of the city's Spedali Civili, which boast a long tradition of international-level studies in this sector. In the development of the activity of the Study Group, the role played, in the last five years, by the Brescia Community Foundation has been fundamental. In fact, the Foundation has supported the research activities of the group, such as the surveys on the population of Pezzaze and on the population of Bovegno, as well as some important events such as the World Congress of Deficit Carriers in Rome, allowing the participation of many patients from Brescia.
Brescia newspaper of 05/09/2008 p. 10
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