When the project was presented in July 2008, the geriatrician Antonio Guaita, director of the Golgi Cenci Foundation in Abbiategrasso in the Milanese area, called it “a bank of ‘talking’ brains”. Today this ‘research vault’, which has been enriched with “the commitment of a generation of abbiatensi”, those born between 1935 and 1939, volunteers for the sake of science, holds about fifty brain cells “and 55 thousand test tubes of blood , plasma and cells “. Preserving this treasure has an important value for the studies that may result from it, but it involves substantial annual expenses, which are becoming increasingly heavy these days. Keeping thousands and thousands of test tubes unaltered in refrigerators “has an energy-intensive cost that is bringing us to our knees – explains Guaita to time.news Salute – because everything is stored at -80 degrees centigrade”.
A ‘scientific capital’ crushed by expensive energy. “We have now reached 17 thousand euros in the last electricity bill, we were about 4-5 thousand in the same month last year. So the voice has tripled – the geriatrician calculates – We are trying to make the system more efficient, we are trying to see if alternative forms of cryopreservation allow for savings. For example, liquid nitrogen which is used as a coolant. We are thinking of upgrading the solar panels. In short, all we can do. And then we are looking for the funds. If they do not arrive. we can do whatever we want, but we will not be able to “soften the blow of the extra costs.
The Banca del Brain of Abbiategrasso was born a decade ago: 1,300 elderly people in the city, aged between 70 and 74, agreed to become ‘allies of neurology’ by participating in a longitudinal study in which “they were evaluated over time by a neuropsychological, clinical, biological point of view. We have everyone’s DNA – says Guaita – In the beginning there were 1,300, now we are in the fifth revaluation of the same group and now they have become 700. At this moment they have agreed to donate their post mortem brain about 300 “. “There has been an excellent response to the project, so much so that now we also have a waiting list because, not having enough funds, we are unable to follow more than a certain number of people over time”. The reason why this unusual bank deposit is important, Guaita recalls on the occasion of World Alzheimer’s Day: “At the Golgi Cenci Foundation one of the three lines of development and research is neuropathology and the Bank of the brain, therefore the study of ‘brain aging and pathologies on the brain as an organ. We are among the few who have the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, but also of people without the disease and we can make comparisons “.
“It is important to study the brain where we have followed people and we know in what cognitive conditions they have lived and so on – observes Guaita – This involves periodic visits, examinations and a significant cost. The evaluation of a patient lasts 3 and a half hours overall. Let’s say that in economic terms it is difficult to say how much we have invested. We can think of an annual budget that is about half of the budget of our Foundation, therefore about 300 thousand euros a year. We have been working on it for a decade. We have collected 41 brain and 10 Brains of people who died of Covid. We studied them and published them. For example, we were among the first in the world to show that the virus does not replicate in the brain, it does a lot of damage, but through inflammation and vascular damage ” .
On the Alzheimer’s front, on the other hand, “thanks also to the funding of another Foundation called Serpero and which is interested in supporting our research on the Bank of the brain, we are carrying out a brain mapping activity – explains the geriatrician – We know that Alzheimer’s has some characteristic sites where it does more damage within the brain tissue and therefore it becomes very important to go and see the differences between the different brain areas from the point of view of the composition and environment of certain proteins controlled by certain genes . If it is true that there are areas that are more prone, and others less, to the damage caused by Alzheimer’s, we try to define the context in which toxic agents move and we try to measure not only proteins, but also the ‘ transcriptomics’, that is, how much DNA orders messenger RNA to build certain proteins “.
It is an element that “gives us an idea of the function, not just of concentration. On this we expect to have results next year – Guaita prospects – Now between October and November we will have almost finished the laboratory analyzes. A part will follow. extremely complex statistics and biostatistics, which takes a lot of time. And then we have to interpret the things we see. It is a very remarkable mass of data, but thanks to the additional Foundation that is helping us we have managed to do it. While other studies, on microglia and on the immunological and connective environment of the brain, a lot will depend on whether we will be financed by the PNRR or not. We participated in the competitive tender by passing the first step. We are waiting for the second “.