The level of exposure given by major international scientific journals during the month of May to studies conducted by Italian researchers remained more or less stable, with 42 articles published, involving the contribution of 333 researchers working across 109 Italian research centers.
Alongside the customary coverage dominated by Italian contributions in the field of oncology (6 studies involving 47 researchers at 18 laboratories, with publications appearing in The Lancet Oncology and in specialized journals of the Nature group, including Cell Death and Disease and Oncogene), the monitoring for this month also brought to light items relating to Italian research in the area of neurology (covering 7 studies by 54 researchers at 10 centers, with related articles published in Cell Death and Disease, Neuropsychopharmacology and Scientific Reports).
In the field of neurobiology, worthy of special mention is a study conducted by a team at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and headed by Marisa Roberto (a member of Aspen’s “Italian talent abroad” group). The work explores the role that a region of the brain – the central amygdala – plays in sustaining cocaine addiction, a line of research discussed by Roberto during an interview with the Aspen Italia website back in July 2012.
Finally, also of note is the contribution in the area of organ transplants by Paolo Muiesan, a surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where he conducts clinical research into “non-heart-beating” donor transplants. In an interview with the Aspen Italia website team, he explains the challenges posed by this type of surgery and new solutions that he and his team are working to come up with in order to improve the functioning of organs removed after the circulatory arrest of a donor. Several articles on the work being carried out by Muiesan and his team have also appeared in the English press, and the Daily Mail in particular, which has reported both on their groundbreaking use of new equipment (April 3, 2012 – Machine that keeps blood pumping around abdomen of dead donors saves organs that would once have been thrown away), and the latest successful operations they have performed (June 19, 2013 – Back at school, cancer girl, 7, who had ‘weeks to live’: ‘miracle’ recovery after mother donated part of liver in pioneering operation).
ARTICLES MONITORED: 42
ITALIAN RESEARCHERS: 333
ITALIAN RESEARCH CENTERS: 109