PROJECT
PARTNER

Eurac Resarch is an applied research center located in Bolzano, South Tyrol with eleven institutes organised into four main areas of research (autonomy, mountains, health, technologies). Through an interdisciplinary approach, the institutes work on the protection of minorities and multilingualism, investigate climate change, draw up sustainable development plans through the use of renewable energy, and contribute to the health of the community by conducting biomedical studies.

Eurac Research Institute for Biomedicine (IfB) aims at fostering biomedical research in South Tyrol and at promoting a change in healthcare that will lead to improvements in the overall health of the population. IfB’s main areas of investigation are cardiovascular health, neuromedicine, bioinformatics, biostatistics and epidemiology. Eurac Research IfB holds expertise in genetic epidemiology study design, genetic data analysis, including genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and candidate gene approach, family data analysis, sequencing and iPS cell generation and reprogramming to cardiac and neuronal cell types. IfB has been conducting a large population-based genome-wide association study on the genetics of common diseases called Cooperative Health Research in South Tyrol (CHRIS). The aim of CHRIS study is to identify predisposition genes for the most common chronic conditions and ageing biomarkers.

At IfB, the ELSI group supports and manages ethical and legal issues related to research in IfB’s relevant fields. The ELSI group conducts independent research in the ELSI field, with a focus on ethical and legal approaches applied to biobanking, registries in the fields of rare diseases, and population studies. The main research emphasis lies on participant/patient’s engagement and on the rights of research participants. In the field of ELSI, IfB cooperates with a variety of international partners like Uppsala University in Sweden, the Genetic Epidemiology Society (IGES) and the Sanger Institute.

Role in the Facilitate Project

Ethical and legal experts along with sociologists will be strongly involved in WP1 (Project Management and Administration), WP2 (Legal and data privacy framework), WP3 (Ethics, standardization and regulatory framework). They will collaborate with the stakeholders engagement activities, also supporting the EDCs and dissemination.