From the Membership Services Committee of the International Society for Analytical Cytology
Laura Teodori and Zofia Maciorowski co-chairs

Dr. Claudio Panzarella ISAC Scholar and his mentor Prof. Laura Teodori

Pharma-Finance 2007. Rome 10-11 May

Rome, the eternal city, alongside its ancient ruins and classic architectural beauties, looks to the future. The title of this first Congress is thus ‘Pharma-Finance 2007 wagering on the future’. Promoted by Sviluppo Lazio (www.sviluppolazio.it) in collaboration with Zangani Investor Community (www.zangani.com) to foster interactions between drugs and biotech, innovative research enterprises and finance, in order to encourage growth opportunities: science, research and behind all this, industry and finance.

Pharma-Finance 2007 was an important part of a program of internationalization policies with not just words and ideas but concrete advancement. The goal was to make Italian businesses and Lazio small and medium sized enterprises interact with equivalent US and international pharmaceutical and financial players.

An ISAC booth was installed during the meeting and provided the opportunity for many attendees to visit, exchange ideas and hopefully join ISAC. The ISAC booth was situated next to the prometeo (www.prometeo.net) booth, manned by an enthusiastic young researcher Francesco Buccelletti, who just became an ISAC member. ISAC has been recognized as the premier home for emerging technologies for pharma research (high throughput/high content screening, systems biology, clinical cell analysis). At the meeting, Dr. Sergio Dompè President of Farmindustria (www.farmindustria.it) and President of Dompè-Farmaceutici (www.dompe.it) made a donation to the ISAC Scholar program. We thank Dr. Dompè for his foresight in supporting this program and we do hope that other companies will emulate his generosity.

During the meeting Professor Elia Valori, president of Sviluppo Lazio, presented an award to Professor François Gros for his deep engagement in social and scientific work towards the development of a human and ethical society, through the concept that public health is the real treasure of the people.

Professor Gros is the Honorary Permanent Secretary of French Academy of Sciences and a member of the Academies of Sciences of India, Venezuela, Russia, Greece and Belgium. He is the former director of the Pasteur Institute and Professor Emeritus of biochemistry at the College de France. Professor Gros kindly accepted an ISAC Emeritus membership.

Our Rome administration established a short term mobility fellowship for a stage in a major pharmaceutical company in the US. This fellowship will also grant a 1 year ISAC membership and t registration for the ISAC Budapest meeting.