UNIPI
The Universita di Pisa was officially established in 1343, and today it boasts eleven faculties and fifty-seven departments, with high level research centres in the sectors of agriculture, astrophysics, computer science, engineering, medicine and veterinary medicine, with nearly 50 thousand students. Furthermore the University has close relations with the Pisan Institutes of the National Board of Research, with many cultural institutions of national and international importance, and with industry, especially that of information technology, which went through a phase of rapid expansion in Pisa during the nineteen sixties and seventies. The Department of Human and Environmental Science includes the group of Genetics, active since the 1970s, who performed a series of important studies on environmental mutagenesis - in vitro, in vivo and ex vivo. These include cytogenetic surveillance of individuals selected due to occupational, therapeutic or dietary exposure to xenobiotics, drugs or physical mutagenic agents. Following several projects on the genotoxic effects of environmental agents, the emphasis has in recent years moved towards gene-environment interactions, in particular investigation of environmental factors involved in complex disorders, especially cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. Recent studies have addressed the potential genotoxic impact exerted by newly synthesised nanoparticles towards human cells. The Department of Human and Environmental Sciences is well equipped with modern analytical instrumentation, and for this project, facilities available include cytogenetics and a molecular genetics laboratory.
