The Academic Board of the Universidad Mayor de San Andres (UMSA) university in La Paz honoured Ambassador of Italy Fabio Messineo with the “Mariscal Andres de Santa Cruz” medal – the highest award of Bolivia’s largest public university – for the 25 years of cooperation between the Italian Embassy in Bolivia and the Cell Biology Unit of the UMSA Faculty of Medicine.
During the ceremony held in La Paz, the Unit’s Director, professor Ricardo Amaru, spoke of having specialised in haematology in Bergamo and, on his return to Bolivia, of having received support from colleagues at the University of Milan Bicocca, the “Paolo Belli” Leukaemia Association of Bergamo, and the Italian Embassy to set up the first laboratory capable of diagnosing leukaemia in La Paz.
Thanks to constant cooperation with Italian research centres, the Cell Biology Unit in La Paz has become the centre of reference for the fight against leukaemia in Bolivia, offering free diagnoses for children and low-cost diagnoses for adults. For the past few years, the Unit has also been performing autologous bone marrow transplants, thus saving many lives.
