Basic science is crucial for innovation and the development of new knowledge that can improve the quality of life of humankind – as recently demonstrated by the role it has played in the rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines – but funding opportunities have historically been very limited in Italy.
The recent allocation of research funds to Covid-19-related projects, even if necessary and appropriate, has made this lack of funding even more critical for basic science in general, and for mid-career researchers in particular.
For this reason, the Giovanni Armenise Harvard Foundation, an organization that supports basic research at Harvard and in Italy, has launched a new pilot grant to fund biomedical scientists who are midway through their careers in Italy.
The first two Armenise Harvard Mid-Career Awards were given to Marie-Laure Baudet of the University of Trento and Sabrina Sabatini of Sapienza University of Rome.
A gap to fill
The new Armenise Harvard Mid-Career Award is designed to strengthen support for some of the research laboratories that the Foundation has established in Italy. Over the past 20 years, the Foundation's Career Development Award (CDA) program has supported 28 young scientists for a total commitment of 28 million dollars. Many of the recipients of the Career Development Award now lead well-established research groups or are midway through their career – in tenured or permanent positions – leading over 200 researchers. These scientists were able to collect, thanks to their work, over 73 million euro in additional grants to the initial funding.
Lisa Mayer, Executive Director of the Foundation: "Quality scientific research, as with many useful things in life, takes time. Scientists in Italy and the United States share the same fate: there is a period in their academic career when there is a funding gap, when the initial grants run out but they are not yet far enough in their career to compete with the most advanced laboratories. That is why it is crucial to provide targeted grants for this intermediate career stage. The Giovanni Armenise Harvard Foundation has launched this initiative, and we hope to encourage other funding agencies to follow".
"The Mid-Career Award is modeled on a program we offer to researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston. It is a two-year grant and provides the scientist with 100,000 USD annually. As always, portability and flexibility are key features of this award", says Elisabetta Vitali, director of the Italian program at the Armenise Harvard Foundation.
The experiences of the awardees
"I believe this new grant scheme is essential to fund researchers at a crucial stage in their careers. Unfortunately, Italian public research funds allocated to basic research are not available to researchers over 40. Funds are available for researchers under 40, who are starting their own research project, and for senior scientists who are already involved in research networks. There is a funding gap between the early and late stages of the career of researchers.
The greatest risk for research in Italy is that promising and cutting-edge lines of research disappear because of this lack of funds and that established researchers lose momentum and competitiveness on the international scene. I have seen this happen more than once since I opened my laboratory in Italy and I wondered why the initial investment in young people is not continued. The new grant program launched by the Armenise Foundation is a key step to fill this funding gap. It will allow talented researchers to consolidate their lines of research by capitalizing on their early success and to thrive in Italy and at international level", says Marie-Laure Baudet, head of the Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Laboratory of Axonal Neurobiology at the CIBIO Department of the University of Trento, and recipient of the new Armenise Harvard Mid-Career Award.
A French biologist, Baudet received the Armenise Harvard CDA in 2012 and moved to Trento after working in Canada and Great Britain. During her career at the CIBIO Department of the University of Trento, she identified crucial processes in the formation of neuronal connections for the development of the nervous system. Once established, these networks are essential for all brain activities, from sensory information to higher cognitive functions such as decision making.
"Thanks to the Armenise Harvard Mid-Career Award, my research group will now be able to study a new class of recently discovered molecules called circular RNAs. Interestingly, these molecules are preferably expressed in the brain, which suggests that they may play a crucial role in this powerful organ. I will use my technical expertise to unravel the role of these molecules in neurons, the brain cells responsible for processing information. In parallel, with my team, we will try to understand if circular RNAs play some role in incurable neurodegenerative diseases, with the hope of developing new therapies", says Baudet.
From Trento to Rome, the second Armenise Harvard Mid-Career awardee is Sabrina Sabatini, molecular biologist and associate professor at Sapienza University of Rome. Here, in 2003, she established the Laboratory of Functional Genomics and Proteomics of Model Systems with an Armenise Harvard Career Development Award. Sabatini uses plant models to study the complex molecular mechanisms that control the balance between cell division and differentiation.
"In my laboratory, we study the molecular mechanisms involved in establishing the boundary between cells with different functions. Establishing and maintaining these boundaries is essential for the proper development of organs. Since my research explores and investigates basic biological processes, it is not easy to find financial support, despite the number of publications" says Sabatini. "I started my career with an Armenise Harvard Career Development Award and then I won a European Research Council Consolidator Grant. At this point, however, finding new financial support has become very difficult. I have passed the age for early research funding but, at the same time, my career is not yet sufficiently consolidated and so, in the middle of my career, I find myself struggling to continue my work: the Armenise Mid-career grant will be crucial since the Italian funding for research, in particular for basic research, is extremely scarce at the moment". Sabatini continues: "Funding bodies prefer to support applied research or early career researchers. As a consequence, the laboratories that were funded at the start are then abandoned even if they have achieved good results. It is essential that funding agencies support basic research and mid-career researchers. The Armenise Harvard Foundation has started such a program, which in my case will be decisive".
About the Armenise-Harvard Foundation
The Foundation was established in 1996 by Giovanni Auletta Armenise to support basic biomedical research. The purpose of the Foundation is to help young scientists working abroad to establish their laboratory in Italy and to support various research programs at Harvard Medical School in Boston. The Foundation so far invested over 70 million dollars at Harvard and 31 million dollars in Italian research, fostering research projects and scientific collaborations across the Atlantic.
The Career Development Award (CDA) funding amounts to 200,000 USD annually (for 3 to 5 years). To date, the CDA program has supported 28 young scientists. The recipients of CDAs have set up laboratories in Milan (EIO, IFOM/FIRC, San Raffaele Institute, University of Milan, CNR), Rome (La Sapienza, EBRI), Padova (VIMM, University of Padua), Trento (CIBIO Department, University of Trento), Palermo (University of Palermo), Trieste (SISSA), Pavia (University of Pavia), Pozzuoli (Tigem), Torino (Italian Institute of Genetic Medicine, University of Turin), Rovereto (IIT), and Camerino (University of Camerino). Research areas include neuroscience, plant biology, biochemistry, immunology, cancer biology, proteomics and genetics, synthetic biology, and stem cells.