Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza is a highly specialized hospital constituted in a non-profit Foundation recognized by the Italian Health Ministry as a Istituto di Ricovero a Cura a Carattere Scientifico –IRCCS (Research Hospital) in the field of “Genetic Diseases, Innovative Therapies and Regenerative Medicine”. It is ISO 9001/2015 certified and is one of the biggest hospitals in Southern Italy, with an average of 57,000 patients per year.

The hospital has an average of 2,500 employees; of these, more than 150 (physicians, biologists and technicians) are involved in the research activity. With around 300 scientific articles published in the most renowned scientific journals, the researchers of the Casa Sollievo take part as Principal Investigators and partners in European, national and regional research projects in the fields of biomedicine, ICT, and robotics. The research laboratories cover an area of 8,700 m2 and are equipped to conduct studies on medical genetics, innovative therapies, and regenerative medicine.

Each research laboratory has the basic instruments to extract, quantify, amplify and analyze nucleic acids, (sequencers and real-time PCR platforms), and instruments for in vitro studies (biological cabinets for cellular cultures and CO2 incubators). The main instruments are centralized and shared by all research units: sequencing, confocal microscopy, cytofluorimetry.
Recently inaugurated, the Institute for Regenerative Medicine (ISBReMIT) hosts various laboratories for the production of clinical-grade human neural stem cells and for the synthesis of biopolymers. In the same Institute, an animal facility is present for in vitro studies (mouse and rat), and it is equipped with the Perkin Elmer IVIS Spectrum CT.

The activity of the researchers is supported by a Grants Office, a Clinical Trial Office, a Bioinformatics Unit, a Biostatistics Unit and a Unit of Cellular Reprogramming, which are also part of the Scientific Research Department.