Albanian National Node

Albania is represented in the ID-EPTRI project thanks to the participation of the “University Hospital Mother Teresa” that is involved in several work packages.

The Albanian Ministry of Health and Social Protection and the National Agency of Scientific Research and Innovation under the competences of the Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth granted their support to EPTRI signing the official letter of political support and sustaining its inclusion in the European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap 2021.

Moreover, the Albanian Institutes signed the Memorandum of Understanding to state the intent of developing the EPTRI Infrastructure. The main research institutes in Albania will continue work to organise the EPTRI National Node, the Albanian Hub (EPTRI-AL) to help, link and support the Albanian scientific community in EPTRI. It will be constituted by the following Institutes:

• Ministry of Health and Social Protection: It is responsible for regulating health care services and for coordinating the work between all actors, inside and outside the care system. Its mission is to draft and implement policies and development strategies in the health care sector. Moreover, it guarantees the application of constitutional rights for protection, social inclusion, social care and equal opportunities.

• The National Agency for Scientific Research, Technology and Innovation: It is a public legal institution under the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth, aimed to build a modern system of science, strengthen scientific and technological research, as well as the integration into the higher education system. At national and international level, it has the task to promulgate national and international projects cooperation, as well as the authority to call and to fund research projects.

• University Hospital Mother Teresa: It focuses on 5 main medical areas: paediatric, neuro-psychiatric, surgery, diagnostic and medical activity. Each sector is specialized in different pathologies. At the Department of Paediatrics, the researchers and physicians work on neurology, cardiology, endocrinology, nutrition, oncology, dermatology, infectious diseases, nephrology, immunology, haematology and genetics. Moreover, they treat cystic fibrosis effects on pancreas, acute bronchioles, acute pneumonia, bronchopneumonia, empyema, pneumothorax, tuberculosis, bronco-ectasias, and congenital anomalies of the respiratory tract. The researchers study also paediatric development mechanisms of immunology (e.g. bronchial asthma), oncology (e.g. neuroblastoma, epigenetics), infection (e.g. shigella encephalopathy or Ekiri Syndrome) and hormonal research (e.g. infancy growth, onset of puberty, Silver-Russell syndrome). The researchers also work on Kawasaki disease and its incomplete form, juvenile arthritis, epilepsy and autism, thalassemia and congenital anaemia as “Fanconi anaemia”, HIV, and chromosomal congenital abnormalities and mutations/deletions of specific genes (e.g. MID1 gene) that cause neurodevelopmental delay or intellectual disability. They perform evaluation studies of specific anti-tumour drugs (imatinib) in chronic phase patients in chronic myeloid leukaemia, and kinetic evaluation of the impact of chemotherapy on low-grade glioma. They develop new model platforms using placenta and umbilical cord from paediatric samples. In addition, they perform genetics diagnosis by array CGH approaches.