Palermo, December 9, 2020 – The European Research Council announced today the winners of the 2020 edition of the “Consolidator Grant” considered the most competitive and prestigious award in the EU. Antonio D’Amore got it: his innovative “BIOMITRAL” project has convinced the reviewers, who considered valid the idea and strong his skills and scientific results achieved so far, including 14 patents and the recent start-up Neoolife, of which he is founder and chief technology officer.
The ERC selects and rewards projects wich are potentially able to revolutionize the market, innovative visions proposed by researchers of any nationality, committed to developing their project in a European country. The goal is to recognize the best ideas and to give status to the best brains in Europe, while attracting talent from abroad. Among these is Antonio D’Amore, Group Leader in Tissue Engineering for the Ri.MED Foundation.
The “BIOMITRAL” project takes an innovative approach to a topic of great importance in cardiac surgery: the mitral valve represents a particularly complex challenge, since it has to bear the highest pressure load. “The key idea,” explains Dr. D’Amore, “is to address functional mitral regurgitation by engineering the chordal apparatus and reconnecting the left ventricle with the valve leaflets.” This is an innovative therapy based on the creation of a polymeric tissue, that has all the advantages of engineered valves, but without stent. “My mitral valve prototype is totally inspired by what is observed in nature, which is why it has a single double-opening cusp and does not have the rigid ring configuration of traditional three-cusp engineered valves.”
Dr. D’Amore elected the Ri.MED Foundation as host institution for his project, carving out a role also for the University of Pittsburgh and the McGowan Institute, where he has been working for years, thanks to the partnership that Ri.MED can boast with UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh. This is an extraordinary success not only for Dr. D’Amore, but also for Ri.MED and for the partnership with Pittsburgh and IRCCS ISMETT, which is also part of the project, together with the University of Palermo.
A further reason to be pride concerns the place chosen for the development of the prototype. ERC funds directly the scientists, so that they are free to decide where to carry out their research. Antonio D’Amore indicated the Ri.MED Foundation, based in Palermo: this is the first consolidator grant with a host institution in Southern Italy ever awarded in the history of the ERC program, from 2007 to date.
“Today’s success of Dr. D’Amore makes us twice satisfied“, explains Paolo Aquilanti, President of the Ri.MED Foundation, “it rewards the brilliant career of our talented scientist, and also it affirms the concrete possibility of bringing development to Southern Italy through biomedical research, a strategic goal that the Italian government has placed among those at birth of Ri.MED”.
Alessandro Padova, Ri.MED CEO, comments: “The selection of the best researchers, their training and professional growth is one of Ri.MED’s statutory mission: we are really proud of Antonio. Looking at his background, we can see the competitive advantage that Ri.MED enjoys: on one hand the American partner for training at the highest level, on the other hand the hospital partner ISMETT IRCCS, to facilitate the rapid translation of research results into clinical applications“.
Dr. D’Amore has developed a unique set of skills in the field of tissue engineering, as well as numerous innovative technological platforms, also evident from the number and the quality of his publications and patents already filed. The goal of his work is to develop an innovative technology that will allow the patiens to be free from the dependence on current anticoagulant therapies required by mechanical valves and that will ensure greater durability of a bioprosthesis. He has already tested the use of temporary support scaffolds, combined with the patient’s own cells: this support is designed to degrade and be replaced by tissue produced by the patient himself. This sensational line of research has been functional to the development of innovative polymer processing technologies, applicable also in other contexts, such as the mitral valve prototype, which – together with the biofabrication of tendon strings – has allowed Dr. D’Amore to win today.
ANTONIO D’AMORE Bioskecth here
Press release ERC 2020_consolidator grants here