Mr. Mayor, Magnifico Rettore, President Brody, Dean Miller, Professor McKusick, members of the Board of Trustees of Johns Hopkins, ladies and gentlemen On Sunday May 15, 2 days from now, 26 medical geneticists from Europe and the U.S., among whom 5 Faculty from Johns Hopkins Medical School will start teaching the 18th course in Medical Genetics of the European School of Genetic Medicine in Bertinoro di Romagna, 80 km from here. This School is at the origin of the project which is being dedicated today to Prof. Giuseppe Levi and Prof. Victor Mc Kusick.

The one week course in Medical Genetics of Bertinoro is usually attended by approximately 100 young postgraduate students in medicine and biology from all over Europe and from the Southern rim of the Mediterranean. It was started in 1988 and was modelled after the course which since 1960 is jointly organized by the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. Professor McKusick will give you in a moment a more detailed account of the relationship between Johns Hopkins University and the European School of Genetic Medicine, which today runs approximately 10 courses per year on different topics in Genetics and Medicine.
The primary training center of the European School of Genetic Medicine was first located in Sestri Levante (close to Genova), but was relocated some years ago to the University of Bologna Residential Center in Bertinoro di Romagna.
A new additional venue for the European School of Genetic Medicine will find its place here at the Hermitage of Ronzano in 3-4 years from now but will start functioning beginning next year using the existing facilities. Today you will be able to look at the detailed architectural plans prepared by Architect Gaspare Inglese shown here in a couple of posters.
The Monastic Order of the Servi di Maria generously offered 16,000 square meters of land for the purpose of building the new EuroMediterranean Center, which will be managed by the European Genetics Foundation. It will permanently house the European School of Genetic Medicine and will host other events of advanced training. The Bertinoro Center will still be used and will be part of a common network of advanced training centers together with the Giuseppe Levi and Victor McKusick EuroMediterranean Center here in Ronzano.
Giuseppe Levi was an Italian histologist renown internationally and the mentor, among others, of three Italian Nobel prize awardees (Salvador Luria, Renato Dulbecco e Rita Levi Montalcini). You will see a biographical sketch of Professor Giuseppe Levi in a poster prepared by my students and you will listen in a moment to Prof. McKusick remarks on this impressive Italian scientist. Before passing the podium to Victor I would like to add a few words on the mission that I envisage for the Giuseppe Levi and Victor McKusick Center.
The European Genetics Foundation has conceived this center not only as a venue for advanced training, but also as a think-tank where the foremost experts in genetics and related disciplines from all over the world will meet to discuss issues of scientific and social relevance, and to develop strategies to address these issues.

To stress this international vocation of the center I would like to draw your attention to the two main international cultural links which are already apparent in its dedication and which I wish the Center will develop further. The first link is contained in the Euromediterranean definition of the center. Bologna is deeply rooted in the history of Europe, is the home of the oldest University in Europe but is also located in the middle of the Mediterranean. Our Alma Mater Studiorum owes its early fortune in the Middle Ages to the fact that it found itself at the crossroad of different cultures. For example, the Council of Doctors (the Lecturers of the Medical School) were able to teach from ancient Greek and Roman medical texts as well as from the Arab and Hebrew traditions imported by Bolognese military doctors during the Crusades. These texts served as important stepping stones for subsequent research, and also served as atlases for the dissection of cadavers, another practice banned by the church but allowed by the University. In consequence, the studies of Anatomy and Physiology flourished and reached international renown, attracting scholars from across Europe.
In my view the cultural link with Mediterranean cultures cannot be embodied by a better scientist than Giuseppe Levi, whose life is described in a fascinating biography and novel written by his daughter Natalia Ginzburg under the title "Lessico familiare" (in English: Family sayings).

The second international cultural link of the center is with Johns Hopkins.

Bologna is the home not only of the University of Bologna, but also of the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University which, as you all know, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Having witnessed the great success reached by SAIS in these 50 years, I would like to express my humble personal wish as a physician who received his lifelong "cultural imprinting" at Johns Hopkins Hospital almost 40 years ago: I wish that the Giuseppe Levi and Victor McKusick center will catalyze many more collaborations with Johns Hopkins in addition to that concerning the European School of Genetic Medicine and that, in turn, Johns Hopkins will develop a specific "medical" interest in Bologna and promote an initiative in the field of Genetics and Medicine analogous to that which was started 50 years ago with SAIS. I could not find a better and more dedicated person who could embody the cultural link with Johns Hopkins than Professor Victor McKusick. Once more I want to thank Victor for what he has done for the European School of Genetic Medicine in these 18 years and this dedication is a small acknowledgment for his work. Dr. Aravinda Chakravarti, who is the Director of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins,, would have liked very much to be here today with us but could not do it because of an important scientific commitment in Cold Spring Harbor. He has written a letter to confirm his full support for the Ronzano center which is attached to the file distributed to you.

In closing I think I can say that Aravinda and I, working together, will try to develop further one of the many accomplishments for which Victor, throughout his career, has been a pioneer at the international level, namely the training in Genetic Medicine of young biologists and medical doctors.

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For the 18th consecutive year I and several of my colleagues at Johns Hopkins are here to collaborate in the course in medical genetics which is part of the European School of Genetic Medicine. First conducted in 1988 as a joint venture of Prof. Romeo then in Genoa and me from Johns Hopkins, this 1-week course is patterned after the highly successful 2-week annual course in medical genetics which was initiated in 1960 (this summer's course will be the 46th (!) session) as an informal collaboration of Johns Hopkins University and The Jackson Laboratory at Bar Harbor, Maine, where that course is conducted each summer. The course in Sestri Levante and now in Bertinoro has been the European equivalent of the "Bar Harbor Course". It has evolved into much more than only a genetics and genomics course. This is implied by the title Euro-Mediterranean Center for Advanced Training which today is presented to you as a project.
I am delighted that the top leadership of both the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Bologna is here, including my bosses Dr. Brody, the president of JHU, and Dr. Miller, the dean of Johns Hopkins Medical School and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. The relationship between JHU and the "Bar Harbor Course" has never been legally cemented; there was no need for that. Dr. Miller and his assistant Elias Zerhouni, who is now director of the NIH, were on hand in Bar Harbor when the 40th annual session of the BH course was celebrated in 1999. The relationship can be a bit like that of Princeton University to the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton; these are separate corporate entities that share much faculty/staff.

It is an honor to have my name connected with that of Giuseppe Levi. A teacher is known best by the achievements of his students. Few if any can match Levi's record. He was professor of anatomy in the medical school at Torino and three of his students won the Nobel Prize: Luria in 1968, Dulbecco in 1975 and Levi-Montalcini in 1986. Furthermore, Luria was the principal teacher and mentor of Jim Watson of Double Helix fame. Thus the intellectual pedigree of Giuseppe Levi includes 4 Nobel laureates.
Dulbecco and Montalcini were in the same class; Luria was in the class ahead. All three were interns in Levi's laboratory. For my American colleagues I must explain that intern is the designation for students who worked in the laboratory of the professor rather than only attending lectures to satisfy the requirements of the medical curriculum. It is my privilege to have met all three over the years and to have known Renato Dulbecco particularly well beginning more than 30 years ago. Aged 91 this year, he lives in southern California where he has long been associated with the Salk Institute. He recently wrote me as follows:

I got to know Professor Giuseppe Levi when I became a medical student at the University of Torino, in 1930. [Renato then recounts anecdotes illustrating Levi's particular characteristics and idiosyncracies.] I came to recognize another side of Levi when he accepted me as an intern in his lab, where I could carry out research. Not research in anatomy, but in biology, because Levi was fundamentally a biologist. In the lab there were some other students, among them Rita Levi-Montalcini and Savador [sic] Luria. Rita was in my year whereas Luria was a year ahead; with Rita we used to discuss the research that I and she carried out, although in different directions. Levi did not participate directly in our work, but [he] followed it closely. Often we discussed it together; and when one of us had some result that seemed interesting, we showed it to him. On that occasion Levi went into all the details of the work, examining all the results, and at the end he decided whether the result was good or not. I remember when he rejected some of my results, at first I was horrified; however, slowly thinking it over, I came to recognize that Levi was right, and that his negative comments were in fact very useful for allowing me to make progress in my work. When Levi found that a result was interesting, he got very excited, and used to encourage us to continue in the direction he found interesting. In both cases Levi's feeling, whether criticism or encouragement, had an extraordinary effect on both of us, and contributed to make scientists of us. I think that this attitude of Levi explains why we three of his students ended up, many years later, earning the Nobel Prize, in different fields. He had taught us the right attitude for doing research. And later, we had the opportunity [to] transmit this teaching to our students [to Jim Watson, in the case of Luria].

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Mr. Mayor, President Brody, Dean Miller, Professor McKusick, members of the Board of Trustees of Johns Hopkins, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen
I am here to express my support for the Ronzano project and for the European School of Genetics Medicine, which is organized by Prof. Giovanni Romeo. This is one of the few initiatives in Europe which has established a consolidated tradition in the organisation of advanced training in various fields of genetics and genomics in medicine.

Giovanni Romeo, Professor of Medical Genetics at our University and Director of the Medical Genetics Unit at our University Hospital founded this School in 1988 in collaboration with Prof. Victor McKusick.
At present, numerous universities in Europe officially recognise the courses of this School by crediting their students for participation. I would like to add that the European Society of Human Genetics has just delivered the newly instituted European Educational Award to Prof. Romeo, on the basis of his accomplishments in the framework of the European School of Genetics Medicine. We are very proud of this honour conferred to Prof. Romeo and, indirectly, to our Alma Mater Studiorum.
I would also like to underline for our guests of the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees that Prof Romeo is a member of the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. Through his collaboration in the field of genetics with Professor McKusick over many years, an interesting convergence of scientific interests was born between our University, the oldest in the world, and Johns Hopkins which can be considered the first truly modern university in the U.S. in that, from its founding, it has given top priority to scientific excellence.
I wish that this collaboration in the field of genetics between our two Institutions will further expand in the future and that the presence of Johns Hopkins in Bologna, successfully established during the 50 years of the history of SAIS, will become even more relevant in the years to come. The Ronzano project will be the best vehicle for this common goal.

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(Padre Provinciale Ordine dei Servi di Maria Provincia di Piemonte e Romagna)

I am very pleased to welcome you at our Eremo of Ronzano on behalf of the friars of the Order of the Servi di Maria from the Piemonte and Romagna Province and on behalf of the Community that hosts us. Ronzano, this hermitage, this hill filled with industrious silence has always been a place for contemplation and the meeting point of the common cultural and religious endeavour, full of deep significance and spiritual immersion in life and nature.
It was with great respect and interest that we received the proposal of the European Genetic Foundation to start a valuable and enduring collaboration, even within our limited possibilities, that will allow the public institutions of our city, of the Alma Mater Studiorum and of Europe to share spaces, thoughts and knowledge with us.
Genetic research opens wide space to education, training and rehabilitation; therefore we can understand it within the sciences for the common good, especially if it is not meant as an absolute tool, but relative to the confirmation of the trascendent and of the pure values at the basis of spirit, human life and nature.
Let me repeat here the wise words of John Paul II: "…To subject everything to profit involves a real loss of freedom for the scientist. And those who would uphold scientific freedom by appealing to a ‘values-free science’ prepare the way for the supremacy of economic interests. In a broader view, the pre-eminence of the profit motive in conducting scientific research ultimately means that science is deprived of its epistemological character, according to which its primary goal is discovery of the truth. The risk is that when research takes a utilitarian turn, its speculative dimension, which is the inner dynamic of man’s intellectual journey, will be diminished or stifled." (International Conference in Warsaw, 5-6 April 2002).
These are words that give an indication of the non-eludible awareness and responsability to the freedom of science and research: if science and research are not a journey to the discovery of truth, it is inevitable that they would head for perversion and would be subjected to various ideologies and powers. Instead, we believe that research has a strong contemplative component, increasingly contemplative with the profoundity of the concepts that are studied and developed. We, therefore, give you a place: Ronzano; a hill: in the Bible and, with modesty, in the history of our Order, the "hill" has a spiritual significance that lets the man meet with the Absolute; and a spirituality: the fraternity and the reception of the friars Servi di Santa Maria who will favour this contemplation so that everyone would be able to sing with us the psalm:
"How it shines, our Lord, / Your name on all the earth: / Your beauty I want to sing, / it fills the immense Heaven..." (psalm 8, from the work of David M. Turoldo)
just like a song of the humanity to the universe, as the work of God given to the man not to be used against himself or the others, but to make a noble and profoud glory-lyric in thoughts and acts.
I give you a fraternal greeting ant the wish that this project, which is waiting for the contribution from each one and everyone, will allow Ronzano, Bologna and Europe to become full of a new history and new hopes.
Thank you.

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I am very pleased to be here for this wonderful occasion. The weather is always beautiful in Italy as are the people. But most importantly, I am glad to see that we are strengthening the relationship between Bologna and Johns Hopkins in so many ways and I look forward to giving my support to the new center and to see it grow as it gets nurtured in this wonderful new soil to become a truly great facility. Thank you all very much and the best of luck.

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Mayor Cofferati, Dean Calzolari, Professor McKusick, Professor Romeo, and distinguished guests. It is an honor to be here this afternoon on behalf of the March of Dimes. The afternoon is long so I will keep my comments very short. We are here at the start of a very important venture with a crucial goal: to raise awareness of and expertise in medical genetics and through this, to reduce the devastating human and economic toll of birth defects and other genetic diseases worldwide.
The March of Dimes understands what is ahead for you. While we led the fight to advance the discipline of medical genetics in the United States in the latter part of the last century, we would not have succeeded without the enlightened, visionary, and wise expertise of people like Professor McKusick and his colleagues. And similarly, now that we have turned our attention to advancing medical genetics worldwide, and particularly in developing countries, the cause that we embrace will not succeed without the enlightened, visionary, and wise expertise of Professor Romeo and his colleagues in the European Genetics Foundation. Let me demonstrate why we are here with some statistics that explain the human dimension of the problem-- and I will focus on birth defects because that is the mission of my organization--.
Every year 7.8 million children are born with a serious genetic birth defect, worldwide. Over 3.3 million children die from birth defects each year. And the impact of birth defects is particularly severe in developing countries where more than 90% of births and 95% of deaths of children with serious birth defects occur. When disability is considered in addition to mortality, the global toll of birth defects reflects a particularly harsh reality. Approximately 3.2 million children each year with a serious birth defect survive to face a life of serious disability.
Improvements in patient care have contributed significantly to decreased levels of disability in individuals in countries such as Italy and the United States, however only limited application of knowledge and technology has occurred in developing countries which currently do not have the resources or the educated professional staff to deal with these issues. And this is an epic tragedy because up to 70% of birth defects can be prevented and those that are affected be given adequate and comprehensive care.
I apologize for being so serious but this is why we are here, and why the Ronzano Project is so important. Medical Genetics is a field that belongs to all of us, and in order for this rapidly expanding field to be used effectively, compassionately, and ethically it will require that all of us – government, the media, and the public, as well as health care providers -- be educated in the promise and perils of medical genetics. The European Genetics Foundation is an organization that is doing just that. The March of Dimes has been proud to support the Foundation for close to a decade and we are proud to have provided one of the first grants for this project. Professor Romeo, the March of Dimes wishes you the best of luck in your project, we are confident that you will succeed, and we are here to stand shoulder to shoulder with you until your vision is realized.

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It is also my pleasure to be here with Dr. Brody on behalf of Johns Hopkins Medical School. You must know that Victor McKusick is an icon at Hopkins and we are pleased to honor him as well. I met with Dr. Chakravarti last week before I left regarding this visit, and he expressed his interest in continuing our collaboration, strengthening it, and finding new ways in which we can work together. I wish you great success with this new venture and look forward to my next trip to Bologna.

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First of all, I would like to thank Professor Romeo and our Foreign guests. When projects such as this are proposed, city administrators embrace them enthusiastically for the many benefits they can bring to the city. I strongly believe in this project and plan to support it in every way that I can. Bologna is home to the oldest University in Europe, and has thus enjoyed a rich history of scholarship and innovation. The Ronzano project is simply a continuation of this tradition with a bold and decisive plan for the future. This project brings the advantage of being a European initiative, making an example of Bologna for the rest of Europe to follow. In this way, Bologna can return to its ancient role as a model of culture and scholarship in Europe. In order to realize this objective, many divers initiatives must be launched, the first and most important of which will consist in this project.

The Ronzano project has created important connections that have tied Bologna, not only to the rest of Europe, but also to the United States. The collaborations between the European Genetics Foundation and the Johns Hopkins University are developing and strengthening thanks to this initiative. This communication is creating an international community that is raising standards of quality in education, scholarship and industry. For these reasons I have full confidence in the successful realization of this project. Furthermore, I cannot be more pleased with the choice of location, the Hermitage of Ronzano in Bologna, and I cannot be more grateful to our hosts who have welcomed us today and who will welcome future students of the Institute. These grounds possess not only natural beauty, but also a rich history of scholarship, creating an extraordinary learning environment that I am convinced will yield extraordinary results.

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16 April 2005
Giovanni Romeo, M.D.
Professor of Medical Genetics
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna
U.O. Genetica Medica, Pad. 11 - Policlinico S.Orsola-Malpighi
via Massarenti, 9 - 40138 Bologna

Dear Dr. Romeo:

I am very delighted to have learnt of your plans to create the Giuseppe Levi – Victor A. McKusick Institute of Genetic Medicine. Our two institutions have worked for a long time, and worked hard, to establish the yearly European School of Medical Genetics where, currently, each year, a number of our faculty, within the McKusick - Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, teach. This is now a yearly activity for each of us and I am pledging you my support that this will continue.

Given this history of our cooperation, I think that the time is right for us to think broader in the area of genetics education. I would like to suggest that we cooperate in this international activity and that our two Institutes of Genetic Medicine take the role of leadership. This is an extremely important activity and one that will require both of our energies and vision. I am willing to support this in every way I can including the writing of grants to various agencies and raising funds from education foundations and individuals to enable this important project to get off the ground.

I am indeed sorry that I cannot be at the opening of your Institute site at Ronzano but that in no way diminishes my enthusiasm for what you have accomplished and what we could mutually accomplish in the future.

Sincerely yours,

Aravinda Chakravarti, Ph.D.
Henry J. Knott Professor & Director
McKusick - Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine
Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Molecular Biology & Genetics

cc: Edward Miller, M.D.
Victor A. McKusick, M.D.

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Dear colleagues,

I regret not to be able to attend the presentation of the Ronzano project because of the coincidence of a meeting of the Deans of all the Italian Medical School in Rome on May 13. I would like however to express my support for this initiative and for the European School of Genetics Medicine (ESGM). I would like also to congratulate Prof. Victor McKusick and Prof. Giovanni Romeo for the success that this School has in Europe. As a sign of this success, on May 7, 2005 the European Society of Human Genetics has delivered the newly instituted European Educational Award to Prof. Romeo during its Annual Congress.
I wish all the success to the Ronzano project which will continue and expand the tradition established by the ESGM



Maria Paola Landini
Dean of the Medical School - Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Polo Murri - Policlinico S. Orsola - Malpighi - Bologna