Organising  Secretariat  Giorgio  Brunelli  Founda/on  Località  Campiani  77  –  25060  Cella/ca  (BS)  Phone  +39  030  3385141  Fax  +39  030  3387595  E-­‐mail:  segreteria@midollospinale.com    Website:  www.midollospinale.com  

Studio  Progress  S.N.C.  Via  C.  CaTaneo  51  –  25121  Brescia  Phone  +39  030  290326  E-­‐mail:  info@studioprogress.it    Website:  www.studioprogress.com  

Giorgio  Brunelli  Founda/on  for  the  Research  on  Spinal  Cord  Injuries  NGO  

Why  Brescia?  

There  are  numberless   reasons   for   coming   to  Brescia   in  

December  2015.  Numberless  for  us  and  numberless  for  

you.  For  us  because  Brescia   is   our   city,   the  place  where  we  

like   to   live   and   where   we   worked   for   more   than   60  

years.   Brescia   is   also   the   place   where   our   FoundaFon  

was   founded   a   long   Fme   ago   and   where   it   sFll  

flourishes  today.  Numberless  reasons  for  you:    Brescia  is  the  place  where  the  eight  previous  successful  

Symposia  were  held  with  the  scienFfic  contribuFon  and  

parFcipaFon   of   Rita   Levi   Montalcini,   Nobel   Prize   for  

Medicine  and  our  past  Honorary  President.    

Brescia   is   the   place  where   the   FoundaFon   started   the  

basic   research  on   spinal   cord   lesions  which  allowed  us  

to   take   the  first   steps   in   successful   surgical  procedures  

to   make   paraplegics   walk   again.   This   was   possible  

thanks   to  an  outstanding   interdisciplinary  work  carried  

out   by   a   number   of   professors   of   the   School   of  

Medicine-­‐University  of  Brescia.  

Last  not  least,  it  is  worth  menFoning  the  cultural  and  

historical   reasons   which   have   allowed   Brescia   to  

become  in  2011  a  Unesco  World  Heritage  Site,  thanks  

to   archeological   famous   sites   like   Santa   Giulia,   a  

former   monastery   tradiFonally   considered   the   place  

where  Desiderata,  wife  of  Charlemagne  and  daughter  

of  the  Longobard  King  Desiderius,  spent  her  exile  aWer  

the  annulment  of  her  marriage  in  771.    

There  are   several  other   stories   to  be   told  and  places  

to  be  visited.  So  come  and  enjoy  our  Science,  History  

and  Culture.  (l.m.)  

University  of  Brescia  

www.midollospinale.com

Dr.  Luisa  Monini  President,    Giorgio  Brunelli  Founda/on  

INVITATION

IX  INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM  

ON SPINAL CORD INJURIES

BRESCIA  3  -­‐5  DECEMBER  2015  

ITALY  

www.midollospinale.com

Dear Colleague,  I am glad to announce the 9th International Symposium of Experimental Spinal Cord Repair and Regeneration, on the multidisciplinary approaches to the research and treatment of Spinal Cord Injuries.  

Brescia on 3 - 5 December 2015  The Symposium, organized as the previous editions by the Giorgio Brunelli Foundation, will be dedicated to the memory of Nobel Laureate Prof. Rita Levi Montalcini, our Honorary President.  H.R.H, Princess Fay Jahan Ara, our current Honorary President, will attend the Symposium.  We will have the honor and the pleasure of having with us Ada E. Yonath, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009 for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome.  

Prof.  Rita  Levi  Montalcini  †    

Nobel  Laureate  in  Medicine  1986  Past  Honorary  President,  Giorgio  Brunelli  Founda/on  

Prof.  Giorgio  Brunelli  Founder  and  Scien/fic  Director,  

Giorgio  Brunelli  Founda/on  

Symposium  2015  Main  Topics  and  Events:    

• Honorary  Lecture  by  Nobel  Laureate  A.  Yonath  • Basic   and   applied   research   in   experimental  Spinal  Cord  repair  and  regenera/on  

• Experimental   studies   and   clinical   use   of   stem  cells  and  neurotrophic  factors  

• Robo/cs  and  Telemedicine  

• Young   Neuroscien/st   Inves/gator   Award    supported  by  Dompè  

• The   4th   “Brunelli   Club   Mee/ng”   dedicated   to  the   most   advanced   surgical   and   neuro-­‐rehabilita/on  techniques  in  the  treatment  of  the  flaccid   and   spas/c   palsies   of   upper   limbs,  including  case  reports.    

«Once  upon  a  /me  anatomists,  physiologists,  neurologists,  

all  considered  the  Nervous  System  as  something  that  was  

to   a   certain   point   their   own   exclusively   property.   Luckily  

nowdays   this  has   changed,   and  now   that   the  barriers   are  

not  there  any  more,  each  expert  has  the  chance  to  access  

this   field.   In   most   recent   years   computer   scien/sts,  

physicists,   mathema/cians,   immunologists,   clinicians   and  

surgeons   from   different   fields   have   been   giving   decisive  

contribu/ons  to   the  understanding  of   the  Brain  and  of   its  

many  func/ons.   I  hope  that   in  the  future  decades  we  will  

be  able  to  pass  in  real  /me  from  the  field  of  basic  research  

to   the   field   of   applied   research,   with   immediate  

consequences  in  the  clinical  field»  

(Rita  Levi  Montalcini)   We would be really pleased if you would come. Hoping to see you in Brescia, best regards  Giorgio Brunelli

Rita  Levi  Montalcini  had  no  doubts  when  she  said  that  the  

most   important   thing  to  occur   in  Neuroscience   in   the   last  

40  years  is  the  fall  of  the  barriers  that  isolated  researchers  

of  the  Central  Nervous  System  from  the  other  scien/sts.

Many outstanding scientific personalities have assured their participation. They will present their latest research in the field of molecular biology, normal and electronic histology, neurotransmitters and receptors, pharmacology, immunology, stem cells, electrophysiology, neurorehabilitation and functional electrical stimulation. New imaging techniques for spinal cord injuries as well as new surgical attempts to cure paraplegia will be presented. A special session will be dedicated to young researchers and their discoveries.

If   proteins   are   the   ‘building   blocks’   of   life,   then  

ribosomes   are   the   factories   that   produce   them.   They  

are   large,   complex   par/cles   within   each   cell   that  

translate   the   gene/c   informa/on   into   tens   of  

thousands   of   proteins,   each   with   a   specific   task   to  

perform  within  the  body.  

Owing   to   the   fundamental   role   of   ribosomes,   many  

an/bio/cs  target  them.  Therefore,  understanding  their  

structure   and   func/on   can   help   biochemists   develop  

new  an/bio/cs   to  disrupt  bacterial   ribosomes  and  so  

fight  the  growing  problem  of  bacterial  drug  resistance.  

Prof.  Ada  E.  Yonath    

Nobel  Laureate  in  Chemistry  2009