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The HIRMA project (Hepatocarcinoma Innovative Research Markers) aims at identifying and characterizing innovative markers related to the biological role of hepatotropic viruses (HBC, HBV and HDV) in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma, which is the third leading cause of cancer death worldwide. To achieve this result 30 research and hospital centres were involved to create an Italian collaborative network able to share and manage the information regarding a population of patients and their biological samples stored in biobanks. In order to allow the collection, the management and the search of the clinical data a dedicated centralized web portal (http://www.hirma.it) has been developed

This talk is divided in two parts. In the first part, we will summarize the status of the APEmille project that will be completed by the end of the year. We will then devote the rest of the talk to the description of a new project for a multi-TeraFlop machine, apeNEXT. The interested reader will find a much more detailed discussion of all the items touched upon here in the full proposal of the project that will shortly appear on hep-lat. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Calcium ions coordinate multiple cellular functions, among which the release of neurotransmitters, the gene expression, the regulation of inflammatory processes and the activation of apoptosis. The regulation of calcium metabolism involves several biochemical pathways, different sub-cellular compartments and it is strongly compromised during aging. In fact, alterations of the calcium signalling process are frequent in the neurodegenerative diseases and mainly result in the hyper-activation of the apoptotic process. To investigate molecular alterations occurring in neurodegenerative diseases, an integrative mathematical model designed to represent the calcium metabolism has been defined. The model, which is mathematically defined by ODEs system, reproduces the calcium ions functions during glutamate stimulation. In particular, a number of different situations, such as (i) the glutamatergic transmission using different impulse frequencies, (ii) the comparison between normal and excessive stimulation and (iii) the calcium homeostasis in young/aging neurons have been reproduced. In particular, the simulations of several features associated to neurodegenerative disease, especially at molecular level and with a particular focus on the apoptotic process, allow highlighting the differences occurring in calcium metabolism in normal and pathological states. Furthermore collecting the achieved simulation and sensitivity analysis results, we propose an in silico strategy for preventing the activation of the apoptotic pathway in the neurodegenerative diseases.

Cancer cells differ from their normal counterparts more in terms of regulatory networks than of specific molecules. A recently recognized hallmark of cancer is the increased uptake of nutrients, particularly glucose, associated with a higher lactate pro- duction. A common step of tumorigenesis, which influences these metabolic alterations, is the constitutive activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway. Fol- lowing an integrative systems biology approach, we propose a model for the in silico investigation of the PI3K/Akt pathway effects on the central metabolism. This model represents a useful tool for the computational analysis of the metabolic differences be- tween normal and pathological conditions.

Due to the lack of experimental measurements, biological variability and experimental errors, the value of many parameters of the systems biology mathematical models is yet unknown or uncertain. A possible computational solution is the parameter estimation, that is the identification of the parameter values that determine the best model fitting respect to experimental data. We have developed an experiment to distribute each run of the parameter estimation algorithm on a different computational resource. The key feature of the implementation is a relational database that allows the user to swap the candidate solutions among the working nodes during the computations. The comparison of the distributed implementation with the parallel one showed that the presented approach enables a faster and better estimation of systems biology models.

La ASL NA 2, il CNR - IBAF, Sezione di Napoli - Se.R.S.A.P. e la Cattedra di Igiene ed Epidemiologia dell'Università "Parthenope" hanno avviato uno studio con l'impiego del GIS, correlato a tecniche di indagine tradizionali, per migliorare la conoscenza dell'epidemiologia umana e veterinaria legata ad uno specifico territorio. Il GIS verrà utilizzato per determinare la distribuzione geografica e l'andamento dei focolai epidemici antropozoonotici, con loro progressione nel territorio oggetto di studio (Comuni di Pozzuoli e Quarto) "unicum" di particolare interesse ambientale per la contemporanea presenza di ecosistemi di natura marina e terrestre. L'ADEP e l'Area Veterinaria dispongono di informazioni relative ai casi di malattie infettive e diffusive sul territorio della ASL Napoli 2 e di dati epidemiologici, sia umani che veterinari, relativi all'ambito oggetto di studio. L'IBAF - Se.R.S.A.P. dispone del know how e delle competenze idonee per ampliare il campo di applicazione della tecnologia GIS, tradizionalmente applicata alla pianificazione territoriale, anche al settore di interesse specifico della ricerca. La Cattedra di Igiene ed Epidemiologia fornirà competenze specifiche nel campo della valutazione analitica. L'elaborazione dei dati con il sistema GIS, consentirà di effettuare un'analisi epidemiologica descrittiva sulla distribuzione dei casi di malattia infettiva e dei fattori di rischio antropozoonotici al fine di implementare azioni sinergiche preventive ai vari livelli per ridurre l'incidenza delle malattie oggetto di studio sul territorio in esame.