Berloni Foundation
against thalassemia
The achievement of these programmes has been carried out by a profitable exchange of
information and scientific experiences set up by the Bone Marrow Transplantation Center
of Pesaro with the cooperation of the haematological departments of the main Italian and
foreign hospitals and Uiniversities all over the world.
A particularly profitable relationship has been established - in these years - with the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wa. USA, managed by Prof. E.D. Thomas
(Medicine Nobel Price in 1990). With this Center, which is in the forefront in the field of
haematological researches, have been drawn up common research programmes
concerning particularly the study of the ex-thalassemic patient after bone marrow
transplant.
Thanks to the drawing up of a draft treaty which has made public the relations between
the Russian and Belarussian Ministery of Health and the Italian one, the Berloni
Foundation has been given grants that helped doctors and nurses coming from the
hospitals of Moscow and Minsk to carry out clinical and scientific trainings at the Bone
Marrow Transplantation Center of Pesaro where they learnt the techniques for the bone
marrow treatment and transplant. This has allowed these doctors and nurses to operate in
the new hospital in Minsk, the first structure in the territory of the former Soviet Union able
to carry out the bone marrow transplantation. In anticipation of the increase in leukemias
as a conseguence of the after-Chernobyl radiant effect the implementation of this hospital,
inaugurated in october 1993, will help to save lifes of many people thanks to this staff
suitably trained and its advanced equipements.
Similar projects are actually in program in accord with the Italian Ministery of Health and
the one of Romania, Iran, India and Turkey.
Furthermore, the Berloni Foundation supports also scientific meetings in the field of haematology. The most important of them is the "International Symposium on Bone Marrow Transplantation in Thalassemia" , which is held in Pesaro every four years. The most important and wellknown scientists in the field of haematology attend the meeting and in this occasion they present the results of scientific researches and clinical treatments carried out by their departments.
The Berloni Foundation supports financials also for the management of the International
Registry of Bone Marrow Transplantation in Thalassemia, which collects all datas
concernig transplants of this pathology made all over the world and allows to get
information for studies and research programmes for the treatment and radical cure of
Thalassemia and to identify donors for unrelated transplants.
Prof. Guido Lucarelli - Prof. E. D. Thomas