International Clinical Research Centre in Brno
The Saint Ann Hospital, in Brno, is about to commence a joint project with the renowned Mayo Clinic, based in Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
Under the umbrella name The International Clinical Research Centre - ICRC Brno, the project will focus on unique clinical and research education.
Dr William Worrall Mayo, and his two sons, Dr W J Mayo and Dr C H Mayo, founded the Mayo Clinic in 1892. Today it employs around a thousand physicians, tends about 400,000 patients annually and enjoys international prestige.
ICRC Brno, which originated in 2001/2002, will be the first international medical research centre to focus mainly on cardiology, internal medicine, neurology, oncology, acute medicine, and neurovascular diseases. The plans include 170 hospital beds, PET-CT, 3T NMR, CT, nine ultrasound labs, and 420 permanent employees, plus 60 extramural specialists.
Originally, a medical centre was planned to resemble the GCRC (General Clinical Research Centre) concept developed by the Mayo in 1965, and recently adopted by numerous institutions internationally. However, it is now considered outdated, so a 'new-generation research centre' has resulted, employing progressive operating procedures of international scientific cooperation, for example used by the ISS-2 (International Space Station 2).
The project's duration was to be three years (2006-09) with approval from the Czech government already emplaced, the entire project received the green light in March 2006, and the financial budget - up to two billion CZK - in July. One of the founders of the Czech project, Dr Tomas Kara MD PhD, internal medicine specialist and clinical researcher at the Mayo, has been appointed CEO of ICRC Brno.
In October, the ground-breaking ceremony for the first phase of the project took place, coinciding with two events initiated by the ICRC Brno team: BioTec 2006 - the first biotechnology conference in Central Europe (and part of the HOSPIMedica international fair, held in Brno Exhibition Centre), and the first Central European Conference on Biotechnology in Medicine 'Gate2BioTech'.
Source: Czech Press. http://www.gate2biotech.com/biotec_2006/en/