The Italian pioneers of stem-based regenerative medicine have been awarded: Michele De Luca and Graziella Pellegrini, both from the "Stefano Ferrari" Center for Regenerative Medicine (Cmr) of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, are the winners of the Louis-Jeantet 2020 award awarded to prominent researchers who carry out their activity in one of the member countries of the Council of Europe. With them was awarded Erin Schuman, director of the German Max Planck Institute for brain research.
The Swiss Louis-Jeantet Foundation has allocated for each of the two prizes awarded (to the Italians the prize is jointly attributed) the sum of 500,000 Swiss francs, of which 450,000 destined to finance the continuation of the studies of the winners and 50,000 awarded personally. All three winners conduct fundamental biology and translational medicine research, which brings cell therapy and regenerative gene therapy to the clinic.
Graziella Pellegrini and Michele De Luca winners of the Louis-Jeantet 2020 award (source: Center of Regenerative Medicine 'Stefano Ferrari' (Cmr) of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
"It is a splendid surprise, we are very honored to receive this award," De Luca and Pellegrini tell ANSA. "It is a very important recognition that - notes De Luca, who has - we have won few in Italy and all of us Italians who have won it are connected to translational medicine, confirming how well it is done in this country". The award, according to Pellegrini, "confirms once again how this sector, on which it is sometimes difficult to obtain funding, both in the light of the spotlight because it is of great interest to society".
Michele De Luca, director and coordinator of Cmr gene therapy, and Graziella Pellegrini, coordinator of Cmr cell therapy, receive the prize for their cutting-edge research on stem cell-based cell therapy, as well as in its combination with gene therapy. , which allowed the treatment of patients with serious skin diseases. For example, De Luca and his group are famous for having treated, in 2017 in Germany, a Syrian refugee child suffering from a very serious form of a disease called epidermolysis bullosa, known as butterfly children's disease whose skin becomes fragile like the wings of a butterfly due to a genetic defect. The child was saved thanks to a genetically correct and laboratory-grown skin transplant.
The group led by Graziella Pellegrini is a pioneer of cell therapy and was the first to regenerate the damaged cornea thanks to stem cell implants. Thanks to this research, the first drug in the world for advanced stem cell therapy was developed for patients with a rare eye disease called corneal stem cell deficiency, approved in 2015 by the European Medicines Agency (Ema).
