Istituto Neurologico Besta

The Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta was founded in 1918, in 1981 it was classified as a Research and Treatment Institute of Scientific Character (IRCCS) and in 2006 changed its status becoming a “Foundation under public law”, with the participation of the Regional administrative authority fo Lombardy and the Italian Ministry of Health.

Fondazione IRRCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta is now a national center of excellence for the research and treatment of neurological diseases.

Its main mission is to promote synergies between translational research and the diagnosis and treatment of neurological, neuro-oncological, chronic and rare diseases affecting adults and children.

Integration between care and research can be considered its hallmark, as since its creation Fondazione Besta has aimed to meet patients care needs, while ensuring access to the best care and treatment options, according to criteria of quality, ethicality, efficiency and scientific innovation.

In particoular, the Fondazione Besta pursues the following purposes:

• providing health care and carry out biomedical, clinical and treatment-oriented research activities;
• implementing professional training and health education programs;
• supporting universities in pre- and post-graduate education and training activities;
• experimenting innovative forms of management and organization in health care and biomedical research.

Fondazione Besta is a national and regional ultra-specialty hub for several rare and complex diseases, that require cutting-edge diagnostic approaches, advanced technologies and highly qualified staff involved in keep on-going specialist training programs.

The Insitute is headquartered in Milano, Via Celoria 11, where the hospital is housed, and has two additional sites for outpatient visits and two more facilities dedicated exclusively to diagnostic and research activities.

Diagnostic, clinical, nursing and research activities are managed by the following Departments:

• Clinical Neuroscience
• Pediatric Neuroscience
• Diagnostics and Technology
• Neurosurgery.

A Department for “Research and Clinical Development” coordinates Phase I/II/III/IV studies, and those involving cell therapies and innovative use of drugs already available for other clinical uses.

Fondazione Besta has more than 30 specialized laboratory units working with advanced methods in neurophysiology, neuropathology, biochemistry, histology and immunohistochemistry, molecular biology, genomics and proteomics and houses a Cellular Therapies Production Unit (CTPU) and 2 bio-banks and 15 biorepositories collecting specimens taken from patients with neurological diseases.

Experimental research is carried out with the help of three main Technological Platforms (Neurophysiology, Imaging and Morphology, Biomolecular) covering the fields of neurophysiology, neuropathology, genomics, advanced biochemistry and cell biology, and equipped with state-of-art instrumentation

Following the conclusion of an agreement with the University of Milan, Fondazione Besta hosts students attending the academic courses of Medicine and Surgery and Specialization Courses in Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Child Neuropsychiatry, sharing with them its scientific and clinical know-how.

Fondazione Besta also hosts the Besta NeuroSim Center, the first european neurosurgical training and simulation center.

The Foundation has recently established a Technology Transfer Office (TTO) helping the researchers in managing intellectual property developed whitin the framework of research projects by providing to identification of inventions and their protection, development and exploitation.

TTO is also reponsible for detecting possible industrial partners operating in life sciences in order to build co-development and/or licensing agreements.

Fondazione Besta performs clinical task of excellence in the field of all neurological diseases and hosts the following Regional Pathology Referral Centers (CRRPs): Multiple sclerosis, Infantile Cerebral Palsy, Speech Disorders, Spino-Cerebellar diseases, Huntington’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Headaches and Cranio-Facial Algias, Epilepsy.

Under the framework of the agreement with the “Mariani Foundation for pediatric diseases, additionally, Fondazione Besta hosts excellence referral centers for the following neuropediatric pathological conditions: Movement Disorders of the Pediatric Age, Complex disabilities, Pediatric mitochondrial diseases,

The Besta Foundation has also established permanent scientific collaborations with national and international organizations and institutions and, as a center of expertise for rare diseases, is a part of the following European Research Networks (ERNs), whose participant members share resources and technologies for common research purposes:

• Rare Craniofacial Abnormalities (ERN CRANIO)
• Epilepsies (ERN EpiCARE)
• Neurological Pathologies (ERN-RND)
• Neuromuscular Pathologies (ERN EURO-NMD)
• Tumors in adults (solid tumors) (ERN EURACAN)
• Vascular Pathologies (VascERN)
• Pediatric Oncology (ERN PaedCan)