About Us

Who Are We?

In the early 2000’s, translational medicine (TM) had started to become a next research catch-phrase. Everyone said that they were ‘doing’ TM – but all too often they were merely linking basic research to the clinic, without looking at the whole arc of development as a patient-centric and population-centric activity.

In 2008, Berent Prakken and Salvatore Albani therefore invited a group of leaders in TM, educators, and institutional administrators to Siracusa, Italy to explore how to address the education of new professionals in TM. This Consensus Conference resulted in an innovative educational initiative to train mid-level career professionals to address critical gaps in the TM field. Since 2009 we have successfully developed and hosted the annual International Certificate Course in Translational Medicine (ICC_TM) in Siracusa.

At the same time, the Eureka Institute was established in 2008 and incorporated in Italy with the legal status of a not-for-profit organization. This created the opportunity to create a network of academic and industry partners, faculty and alumni capable of expanding the teaching and practice of translational medicine beyond the ICC to multiple regional hubs.

Over the last decade Eureka has continued to focus on initiating collaborative TM programs that address unmet patient needs. To accomplish this, Eureka leverages its members and coalesce their immense potential into a network with a shared Eurekian vision.

Adult learning has undergone significant developments since Eureka was launched and today’s TM education has to consider the learning needs of a whole new generation of professionals, who have ready access to information and a globalized research setting.

Eureka has succeeded in taking on these challenges and has successfully built an international educational reputation as well as building a diverse network or partners and supporters.

The network spans the globe, with 11 major Universities worldwide as partners.

Drexel University College of Medicine (USA)
SingHealth-Duke NUS (Singapore)
Stanford University Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (USA)
UMC Utrecht (Netherlands)
United Arab Emirates University (UAEU)
University of Arizona (USA)
University of Miami Clinical & Translational Science Institute (USA)
University of Toronto (Canada)
Bocconi University (Italy)
University of Catania (Italy)
Università Vita Salute San Raffaele (Italy)
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (USA)

In addition, Eureka has welcomed two national research institutes who recognise the need for their work to incorporate TM thinking: Cancer Research UK and the National Foundation for Emergency Medicine (NFEM) (USA).

There are also a number of other entities which are active supporters. These range from universities, including University College London (UK), Yale (USA), Cambridge (UK), Ghent (Belgium) and Milan (Italy) to companies (including Danone Nutricia and Roche) to leading journals such as Nature Biotechnology and Nature Medicine.

The partners have already developed a number of regional hub educational courses and are developing hub activities and collaborations.

Most crucially of all, every person who attends a Eureka event becomes an alumnus, a ‘Eurekian’. And these Eurekians are the future of Eureka; they have become a global family and a support network.

This Eureka Institute network of partners, supporters and Eurekians is catalyzing , integrating and impacting education, research and policy making within an international translational medicine ecosystem that benefits society.