Fondazione IRCCS Stella Maris

Stella Maris Foundation is the only Scientific Institute for Research Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS) with its principal activity in Tuscany and the only one in Italy exclusively dedicated to research and assistance in Child Neurology and Psychiatry, a discipline of important scientific impact in clinical neurosciences of a great social relevance.
An advanced research hospital that combines the highest levels of care with a very high quality of scientific research in developmental neuroscience. Rare diseases, intellectual disabilities, autism, neurological disorders, movement disorders, ADHD are some of the pathologies studied and treated at Stella Maris. The Hospital Centre, situated in Calambrone (Pisa), organized in a multi-professional way, is an internationally recognized hub that involves the activity of university professors and researchers. Stella Maris takes advantage of methods and more and more up to date diagnostic techniques, both in terms of neuroimaging, neurogenetics and bioengineering applied to medicine. Each year, the centre admits more than 3,000 inpatients and has a total volume of more than 35,000 outpatients. The Foundation also acts as a teaching centre for the University of Pisa and hosts the School of Specialization in Child Neurology Psychiatry and the Degree Course for Developmental Therapists.
The research activity is organized in 4 research lines, approved by the Italian Ministry of Health:

– Developmental Neurology: Innovation in Diagnosis and Rehabilitation
– Diagnosis and Therapy in Developmental Psychiatric Disorders
– Neurobiology and Neurogenetics of Neurodevelopment Disorders
– Magnetic Resonance Techniques and Biomarker Research for Developmental Neuroscience

And in 11 research laboratories, all with an assistance projection:

– Movement Analysis
– Bioengineering of Social Interactions
– Clinical Dysmorphology
– Medical Physics and Biotechnology of Magnetic Resonance
– Molecular Medicine, Neurogenetics and Neuromuscular Disorders
– Neurochemistry
– Clinical Neurophysiology
– Neurolinguistics and Neuropsychology
– Robotic and Biomechatronic Technologies in Neurorehabilitation
– SMILE
– Vision.

Stella Maris research groups work in collaboration with numerous national and international scientific centres, SMEs and industries for specific research projects. It has always promoted an intense collaboration with other IRCCS that assist similar pathologies and is part of the Neuroscience and Paediatric Networks of the IRCCS. It hosts and is one of the founders of IMAGO7 Foundation, a research centre developed around an Ultra High Field Magnet Resonance System (MR 7Tesla, the only one in Italy) aimed at the development of interdisciplinary research in neuroscience and clinical imaging.