• Board of Directors
• Coordination Committee

Carlos Belmonte and Dargut Kemali

On April 16, 2008, in Naples, Italy, Professor Carlos Belmonte, President of IBRO, and Professor Dargut Kemali, founder and President of the Dargut and Milena Kemali Foundation for Basic and Clinical Neurosciences, entered into an agreement whereby the Foundation’s activities will form an integral part of IBRO’s promotional activities in neuroscience research. At the same time, the Foundation’s office in Naples, overlooking the beautiful gulf of Naples, will become available as a site for selected IBRO meetings, to which it will add a unique Mediterranean flavour.

The Foundation was established in 1996 by Dargut Kemali, a renowned psychiatrist at the University of Naples, and by the will of his late wife Milena Agostini Kemali (1926-1993). Convinced that brain research is a high priority in the science of our times, Dargut Kemali has always been interested in the biological foundations of mental diseases. Milena Kemali, a dedicated neuroscientist who focused on the frog brain, was a researcher at the CNR (the Italian National Research Council). Among her achievements, she identified an asymmetry in the organization of the frog diencephalon (the habenulae), which may represent an evolutionary feature of the lateralization of function and asymmetry of higher cortical functions in humans.

The Kemali Foundation aims at promoting research in the field of basic and clinical neurosciences, thus bridging the interests of its two founders. With this aim the Foundation awards every two years the International Dargut and Milena Kemali Prize, honouring important research contributions in the field of basic and clinical neurosciences for scientists under 45 years of age. The Prize is awarded at the FENS Congress, where the recipient presents his/her achievements at the Kemali lecture. The Kemali Prize has been awarded to Tamas F. Freund (1998), Robert Malenka (2000), Daniele Piomelli (2002), Cornelia I. Bargmann (2004) and Patrik Ernfors (2006). This July the Kemali Prize 2008 will be awarded to Massimo Scanziani (La Jolla, USA), who will give the Dargut and Milena Kemali Prize Lecture at the FENS Forum in Geneva on Tuesday, July 15, 13:00-14:00, His lecture is entitled "Basic operations of cortical inhibitory circuits”.

The Foundation has also, until the present agreement, awarded a two-yearly Dargut and Milena Kemali scholarship for young Italian investigators in the field of basic and clinical neurosciences. By the agreement signed with IBRO, this will now be substituted with an international initiative that contemplates a partnership in a “Kemali-IBRO Mediterranean School of Neuroscience”. The Foundation will thus participate with IBRO in a new initiative, the Kemali-IBRO School of Neuroscience, to be held every two years (in the year when the International Prize is not awarded).

It is envisaged that the new school will be organized by IBRO in the same way that its neuroscience schools world wide are organized and with the aim of promoting the training of young researchers in basic and clinical neurosciences. The school will be held in a country of the Mediterranean region (preferably one of the North African countries or Turkey).

Professor Belmonte commented: “I fully share with Professor Kemali his perception of the importance of extending cultural bridges through science between continental Europe and non-European Mediterranean countries and the exciting possibilities offered by an association between IBRO and the Kemali Foundation to advance in that direction. I was particularly impressed by the generosity evidenced by Professor Kemali during the complicated negotiations with IBRO and the vision and skills of Professor Marina Bentivoglio in conducting them to a successful end.”