Rome

A new building at Rome's Santa Lucia Hospital will house the European Brain Research Institute. Credit: EBRI

An Italian competition to host a European Brain Research Institute (EBRI) has been won by a private hospital in Rome.

The institute is the brainchild of Nobel laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, who personally organized the national competition without waiting for support or financial backing from the Italian government or any other institution.

The EBRI will be housed in a new building at Rome's Santa Lucia Hospital, which specializes in rehabilitating patients with neuromotor problems.

But as yet the new institute has no guaranteed funding to cover its running costs. Officials at Santa Lucia are relying on the hospital's growing status in Italian research, and on the reputation of Levi-Montalcini, to attract funds.

“We are confident that funding for some positions will emerge in next year's budget,” says Luigi Amadio, director of the Santa Lucia Foundation, which owns the hospital. He also hopes to win support from the European Union.

Levi-Montalcini, now 93, first mooted the concept of the EBRI last September, describing it as a truly European centre to attract foreign scientists into Italy, as well as offering Italian neuroscientists a chance to return home.

“I was surprised by the enthusiastic response from the scientific community,” says Levi-Montalcini. Sites in Rome, Turin and Varese, near Milan, applied to host the centre.

The successful application was spearheaded by Amadio and neurologist Giorgio Bernardi of Rome's Tor Vegata University, who also works at the hospital. In recent years, Amadio and Bernardi have greatly expanded research at Santa Lucia, and in 1992 it was awarded a 'research hospital' status, which allows it to apply for additional funds from the health ministry. Since then its research income has risen from 250,000 euros (US$245,000) to 9 million euros last year, and it now employs 125 researchers.

Levi-Montalcini is also establishing an international scientific committee for the EBRI to recruit scientists, who will be able to establish research groups in any neuroscience field. “I'd like to see a holistic approach at the EBRI, with lots of cross-fertilization,” she says.