AREA Science Park Launches Alliance With Toscana Life Sciences

FLORENCE, Italy, Oct. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- AREA Science Park, Italy's leading scientific research center, has signed a collaboration agreement with Toscana Life Sciences, a prominent institution whose area of expertise is Life Sciences. 

Sergio Paoletti, President of AREA, said the new agreement represents a key step in the drive to create a nationwide system and reach the critical mass in the fields of genomics and epigenomics in Italy. 

"This partnership with Toscana Life Sciences," said Paoletti "Will certainly give us the opportunity to create a great network of national excellence to achieve important scientific results, while fostering economic growth and development."

In this context, AREA is keen to share its scientific and technological infrastructures. These include the facilities of Elettra Sincrotrone - an international multidisciplinary research center specialized in the generation of synchrotron light and free electron lasers and its applications in Materials and Life Sciences - and the recently acquired Sequencer that allows rapid analysis of DNA and RNA, and is also used in epigenomic research.

"Sharing technological infrastructures and optimizing their use is one of the main objectives of the Argo System, the industrial model we have tested in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and which now extends across the country," explained Stefano Casaleggi, Managing Director of AREA. 

"We are building, in every Italian region, a network of partners able to give value to this system and enrich it with specific skills. In Campania, we signed an agreement with the University of Salerno, in Tuscany with Toscana Life Sciences, and many others will follow. This is all part of a system of innovation, available for research and business across Italy," Mr Casaleggi added.

President of Toscana Life Sciences Fabrizio Landi noted that: "The agreement signed with AREA is based on the sharing of skills and knowledge gained in the respective areas of research, training and development."

Vice president of the Tuscany region Monica Barni concluded saying that: "This is a clear example of how the synergies between innovative and excellent realities can be of benefit to the community. I hope that today's signature represents only the first step of a path towards great progress."

Area Science Park is a leader in public-private partnerships in fields as far-ranging as the digital economy, logistics, artificial intelligence and 5G, genomics and epigenomics, particle physics, and process innovation.

SOURCE Area Science Park