Fondazione Europea per la Genetica (EGF – European Genetics Foundation)
Description of organisation
The Fondazione Europea per la Genetica (European Genetics Foundation - EGF) was founded in 1996 by a group of researchers who were already involved in the activity of the European School of Genetic Medicine, set up in Sestri Levante (Genova, Italy) in 1988 by Professor Victor A. McKusick (Baltimore, USA) and Professor Giovanni Romeo. Since then, the European Genetics Foundation has been attracting an increasing number of students from all over Europe who choose to attend the numerous courses offered by the ESGM (www.eurogene.org). Over the last 22 years more than 5,500 students have attended the ESGM courses, which have been expanded to the present total of 12-15 per year. To enhance the availability, the sharing and the quality assessment of scientific research and publications is an integrating part of EGF efforts to improve the competitiveness of training and research in Europe in the field of Genetic Medicine. In order to achieve this result EGF has also invested in distance training by developing tools for the web casting and streaming on demand of its courses. EGF and ESGM coordinated and realized a series of national and international projects in the field of advanced training and research in genetics and genomics.
Previous experience
EGF also has a long experience in the realization of national and international projects focusing on the creation of online Health Networks and the transfer and sharing of scientific expertise and training. Among the various projects the best examples of our activities in this area are Health e-Child and Eurogene. Health e-Child (http://www.health-e-child.org), funded within the EC Information Society Technologies priority, aims at the development of an integrated platform for health care in the paediatric sector and at enabling free access of universal databanks in the biomedical field as a long term goal. Finally EGF is the coordinator of the Eurogene project (www.eurogene.eu), funded by the EC e-Content plus program, whose main objective is to facilitate the migration towards more efficient use and development of higher quality (multimedia) didactic material on genetics. This project has produced the first open access pan-European learning service in the field of genetics, which is now featuring more than 300.000 educational items and has attracted educators and students at a global level.
Profile of staff members
Prof. Giovanni Romeo
Alma Mater Professor of Medical Genetics at University of Bologna Medical School (1965). Degree in Medicine; Internship& Residency in Paediatrics, University of Bologna Medical School (1965-7); Research Fellow, Genetics Division, Department. of Paediatrics, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, Md. (1968-71)
He is a medical geneticist with a wide international research experience documented by his leadership role during the past 30 years in different Institutions, namely in Genova (Istituto G. Gaslini), Lyon (International agency for Research on Cancer) and now in Bologna.
Major research interests: Hirschsprung disease, RET protooncogene, consanguinity studies and during the last 10 years mtDNA mutations in oncocytic tumors.
He is President of the European Genetics Foundation (EGF), a non for profit organization which manages the European School of Genetic Medicine (www.eurogene.org) devoted to the advanced training in genetics and genomics of young geneticists and health professionals from Europe and elsewhere in the world, in particular graduates from the Southern rim of the Mediterranean sea basin and the Middle East. He started this School in 1988 in collaboration with the late Victor A. McKusick. For this reason he was awarded in 2011 the ASHG Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Education (http://www.ashg.org/pages/awards_2011winners.shtml
Webpage
www.eurogene.org
Five recent publications relevant to the project
1) Rhoden KJ, Cianchetta S, Stivani V, Portulano C, Galietta L, Romeo G. Cell-based imaging of sodium iodide symporter activity with the yellow fluorescent protein variant YFP-H148Q/I152L. American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology. 2007 ;292: C814-23
2) Gasparre G, Porcelli AM, Bonora E, Pennisi LF, Toller M, Iommarini L, Ghelli A, Moretti M, Betts CM, Martinelli GN, Ceroni AR, Curcio F, Carelli V, Rugolo M, Tallini G, Romeo G. Disruptive mitochondrial DNA mutations in complex I subunits are markers of oncocytic phenotype in thyroid tumors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 May 22;104(21):9001-6.
3) Gasparre G, Kurelac I, Capristo M, Iommarini L, Ghelli A, Ceccarelli C, Nicoletti G, Nanni P, De Giovanni C, Scotlandi K, Betts CM, Carelli V, Lollini PL, Romeo G, Rugolo M, Porcelli AM. A mutation threshold distinguishes the antitumorigenic effects of the mitochondrial gene MTND1, an oncojanus function. Cancer Res. 2011 Oct 1;71(19):6220-9
4) Tommaso Pippucci1, Matteo Benelli2,4,5, Alberto Magi2,5,6, Pier Luigi Martelli3, Pamela Magini1, Francesca Torricelli2, Rita Casadio3, Marco Seri1, Giovanni Romeo1, EX-HOM (EXome-HOMozygosity): a proof of principle. Human Heredity 2011;72(1):45-53
5) Gialluisi A, Pippucci T, Anikster Y, Ozbek U, Medlej-Hashim M, Mégarbané A, Romeo G. Estimating the allele frequency of autosomal recessive disorders through mutational records and consanguinity: the Homozygosity Index (HI).Ann Hum Genet. 2012 Mar;76(2):159-67