“This is how we saved 20 million lives.”

From cancer to Covid, a spotlight on immunity and vaccines. This is the meeting, or rather, the long journey between history and science, conducted yesterday by Professor Alberto Mantovani during the preview of the ninth edition of the Festival of Medical Sciences (scheduled to be held on November 10 and 11), promoted by the Foundation for the Promotion and Study of Medical Sciences in cooperation with the University. . A journey through challenges, research, progress and new goals. Looking to the future with determination: “A Nobel Prize for Carrico and Weissmann? Very deserved,” says Mantovani. “I had the pleasure of meeting Carrico in times that were not yet in doubt, before he became a ‘star.’ Think of it as a hope for a prize.” Nobel Prize, especially since messenger RNA technology has changed the way we do research.”

The Nobel Prize fuels hope that this technology will help us obtain innovative medicines and therapeutic vaccines. In reality, we only have preventive vaccines, but we raise hope that therapeutic vaccines against cancer can be obtained, to be used in combination with other immunogenic vaccines. Weapons. The Nobel Prize for the hope, finally, of having effective vaccines against the major scourges of humanity, for which we have no vaccine yet or where we can do better. Such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

However, regarding Covid, three years after the start of the pandemic, Mantovani emphasizes how “the efforts have been enormous: it is estimated that in the first year of use, when we were dealing with a more aggressive virus, vaccines saved about 20 million people from “not Just that – Mantovani continues. The virus is mutating and we are chasing it, just as we do with influenza, and this technology promises to work at almost the same speed as the virus. The call is to get vaccinated.”

“This meeting – adds Rector Giovanni Mollari – draws attention to fundamental issues for the future of the healthcare system. Our university recognizes the social responsibility of investing in research.” Fabio Roversi Monaco, President of the Medical Sciences Foundation, and Luigi Bologni, President of the Academy of Sciences, were also present.