Attività di ricerca

The activities of the Institute.
Research activities encompass genetics and pathogenesis of human diseases, molecular genetics using cells and various model organisms, developmental and stem cell biology as well as biotechnology for environment and agriculture. Historically, IGB researchers have published high impact papers with very high number of citations, especially in the fields of developmental biology. For example (and just to mention a few) in the 60's, right after the foundation of the Institute, some of Dr. Ritossa publications on heat shock proteins in flies have been cited thousands of times; in the 90's Dr. Boncinelli seminal work about homeobox genes have been cited hundreds of times. During the period relevant to this report, the most cited publications concerned genome, epigenome and developmental biology studies as well as human disease publications (collectively more than a thousand citations). Thus, over its almost half a century-long life, the Institute has kept a leading theme in specific sectors of life sciences and has contributed strongly to the progress of these disciplines.
All the research activities are currently funded by external sources. Competitive research funds have been awarded to IGB by the European Union, the Italian Ministry of Research and Education, the Italian Association for Cancer Research, Telethon, and other National and International Research Funding Agencies.
The environment is multidisciplinary and research can take advantage from the availability of different expertises and high tech core instruments. The main core facilities include state-of-the-art cell sorter/analyzer; confocal, standard and electron microscopy; a custom built robotic station for high-throughput cell culture handling; and an Affymetrix workstation for microarray hybridization and scanning. In addition, we have already secured funding for and ordered a high-throughput deep sequencer (Applied Biosystems Solid III). Thus we are looking forward to the next 5 years of research well equipped with excellent scientists and the latest technologies.