HEAL ITALIA: Health Extended Alliance for Innovative Therapies, Advanced Lab-research, and Integrated Approaches of Precision Medicine

Mani in laboratorio Heal Italia PNRR

NRRP intervention area: Mission 4 – Education and Research
Component: 2 - From research to business
Investment: 1.3 - Extended partnerships with universities, research centres, businesses and research project funding
Duration: 36 months, ending on 30/11/2025
Total project funding: €114,700,000
Proposer: Università degli Studi di Palermo

Precision medicine for the health of everyone

Personalised and precision medicine refers to a new approach to treating and preventing disease in individuals that moves away from the generalist approach and takes into account the unique characteristics of each individual.
The Heal Italia partnership aims to identify new predictive and non-invasive diagnostic pathways to improve the prediction, detection and monitoring of monogenic and polygenic diseases and cancer.
Following the One Health approach of integrating different disciplines, Heal Italia will draw on the expertise of leading research groups and infrastructures from the academic, clinical and private sectors.
In particular, it will focus on the analysis of environmental factors, lifestyle and genetic determinants of multigenic and multifactorial diseases, in order to address the health needs of the most vulnerable layers of the population.

Project structure and participation

Foundation composition

Universities and research institutes

Università degli Studi di Palermo
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"
Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata"
Università degli Studi di Milano – Bicocca
Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Università Politecnica delle Marche
Università di Pisa
Università degli Studi di Foggia
Università degli Studi di Catania
Università degli Studi di Cagliari
Università degli Studi di Verona
Istituto Superiore di Sanità - ISS
Istituto Fisioterapici Ospitalieri – IRCCS
IRCCS Centro Di Riferimento Oncologico Di Aviano
IRCCS University Hospital of Bologna - Policlinico Sant’Orsola

Private actors

Istituto Neurologico Mediterraneo Neuromed I.R.C.C.S.
Fondazione Toscana Life Sciences TLS
Upmc Italy Srl - UPMC
Istituto Oncologico Del Mediterraneo Spa - IOM
Bi-rex -Big Data Innovation & Research Excellence - BI-REX
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.P.A
Istituto Di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri”
Opella Healthcare Italy S.R.L.
S.I.T. - Sordina IORT Technologies S.P.A.

Areas of action

Spoke 1 - Holistic Nosology (leader: Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata")
Spoke 2 - Intelligent health (leader: Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)
Spoke 3 - Prediction models (leader: Università degli Studi di Palermo)
Spoke 4 - S4D Precision Diagnostic (leader: Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza")
Spoke 5 - Next-gen Therapeutics (leader: Università degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca)
Spoke 6 - Health Toolbox (leader: Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia)
Spoke 7 - Prevention strategies (leader: Università Politecnica delle Marche)
Spoke 8 – Clinical exploitation (leader: Università di Pisa)

The University of Bologna participates in all spokes and coordinates spoke 2.

Project team

University of Bologna participants

Scientific coordinator

Prof. Manuela Ferracin

National coordinator for Spoke 2

Prof. Stefano Diciotti

Teaching and research staff

Maria Abbondanza Pantaleo
Alessandro Bevilacqua
Elisa Boschetti
Lorenzo Breschi
Giovanni Capranico
Tobias Cramer
Stefano Diciotti
Igor Diemberger
Gabriele Matteo D'Uva
Manuela Ferracin
Francesca Fornari
Simone Furini
Enrico Giampieri
Mattia Lauriola
Riccardo Masetti
Francesco Massari
Angela Montanari
Filippo Piccinini
Fabio Piscaglia
Anna Maria Porcelli
Matteo Rottoli
Alessandra Ruggeri
Castrense Savojardo
Stefano Severi
Silvia Turroni
Maria Lucia Valentino
Carlo Ventura
Marco Viceconti
Nelsi Zaccheroni
Pier Luigi Zinzani

Staff hired with project funds

Researchers

Chiara Bartolucci
Giacomo Calini
Giorgio Davico
Andrea De Giglio
Giulia Gallerani
Carmen Miano
Manuela Sollazzo

Staff with a research fellowship

Matteo Cingolani
Silvia Dallari
Alessandro Di Federico
Matteo Manfredi
Luca Muratori
Sara Peluso
Nag Pratik
Alessandro Rapone
Linnea Valeri

PhD students

Alessio Aloisio
Emma Coschina
Andrea Espis
Giorgia Procaccianti
Clara Vianello

Departments involved

Department of Chemistry "Giacomo Ciamician" - CHIM
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering "Guglielmo Marconi" - DEI
Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences - DIBINEM
Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi" - DIFA
Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences - DIMEC
Department of Industrial Engineering - DIN
Department of Computer Science and Engineering - DISI
Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology - FaBiT
Department for Life Quality Studies – QUVI
Department of Statistical Sciences "Paolo Fortunati" – STAT

The work carried out so far by the university research teams on this project includes:

analysis to understand disease at the molecular and cellular level, using technologies that can lead to a faster diagnosis and more targeted treatments. Specific studies on how cancer cells spread and behave to find new ways to fight cancer;
the creation of digital platforms that, using artificial intelligence, can analyse medical data on a large scale, promoting personalised medicine and improving diagnosis and treatment strategies;
studies on predictive models of how genetic variations affect health. In particular, biological indicators have been identified in the blood that can reveal the presence of disease, allowing simpler and less invasive diagnoses.

What activities are in progress?

In the coming months, studies of genetic variations and how they can affect health conditions and the effectiveness of treatments will be further investigated. A particular focus will be on the use of Artificial Intelligence to better predict disease and to tailor treatments.

Learn more about the project