Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, announced last September a 3 billion-dollar initiative with the goal to “cure all diseases” by the end of the 21st century. Is this goal feasible or is it just a baseless prophesy for the media? In the new Big Data era, scientists are required to understand the complexity of diseases with new tools provided by information technology, network medicine, epigenetics, environmental factors analysis such as nutrition and microbiome and the new potential to alter our DNA. Is it then possible to cure all diseases? Hope “cures” last…

Speaker:
George Kollias, Academy of Athens, Professor of Experimental Physiology at the Medical School of National Kapodistrian University of Athens and Director of the Immunology Division at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center”Alexander Fleming”

George Kollias is a biologist, member of the Academy of Athens, Professor of Experimental Physiology at the Medical School of the University of Athens and Director of the Immunology Division at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center “Alexander Fleming”, where he served as President and Scientific director from 2002-2010. Dr. Kollias is renowned for proof of principle preclinical studies that led to the development of anti-TNF therapies for rheumatoid arthritis and has pioneered genetic approaches to advance knowledge on the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving chronic inflammation and autoimmunity. Dr. Kollias has led several efforts for the development of biomedical infrastructures of scientific and technological excellence at a national and European level.
Biomedical Sciences Research Center”Alexander Fleming”