Established in 1976, the “Fondazione Internazionale Menarini” aims to promote research and knowledge in the fields of biology, pharmacology and medicine, as well as economics and human sciences, throughout the world. In the words of Sergio Gorini, the Foundation’s first president, the Institution is conceived as “a meeting point for all friends with common ideals towards the progress of sciences for the benefit of mankind.”

Over the course of its existence, the Foundation has launched many initiatives, including more than 500 International Conferences around the world on particularly innovative medical and biological topics, as well as on issues of specific interest to the medical world.

At a time when digital technology is playing an increasingly central role in communication, especially during a pandemic that has entailed the need to increase remote initiatives, the “Fondazione Internazionale Menarini” (that had already created the Coronavirus Library online) has decided to launch two significant digital projects: the online version of the magazine Minuti in its Scientific and Artistic editions, and the initiative Dialogs Beyond Borders.

Minuti goes digital

The Minuti magazine, which has been in print since 1956, is published in collaboration with the magazine American Family Physician, thus achieving one of the Foundation’s main goals: the perfect union of medicine and humanism. According to this ideal, the magazine has both a Scientific Edition, with articles providing information and updates on pathologies and therapeutic approaches, and an Artistic Edition, aimed at encouraging sensitivity and love for art.

Currently, Minuti has more than 100,000 Italian medical subscribers who receive the magazine free of charge.

In 2021, the “Fondazione Internazionale Menarini” launched the digital edition of Minuti, so that the magazine – with its Scientific and Artistic editions – can become more widely accessible, as well as more eco-sustainable. The digital edition of Minuti is currently available in Italian, English and Spanish.

To access Minuti’s digital contents in all languages, simply register in the reserved area of the Fondazione Menarini website.

Dialogs Beyond Borders: outstanding personalities from the scientific community tell their stories

Dialogs Beyond Borders is another new initiative promoted by the “Fondazione Internazionale Menarini”: a series of video interviews with key opinion leaders of the world of medical science who achieved tremendous success in their scientific life, including numerous premium laureate Nobels, such as Professor Louis Joseph Ignarro, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1998.

The interviews, which took place at the Auditorium of the Fondazione Menarini in Fiesole and can be viewed on the House of Sciences website, alternate between scientific and more personal questions, with the idea of creating a dialogue that allows viewers to go “beyond the borders” of the professionalism of the more prominent protagonists of the scientific world, in order to gain a broader view of those aspects of their history and their experiences that contributed to their success.

With this innovative format, the goal of the “Fondazione Internazionale Menarini” is to provide viewers with new insight and, above all, inspiration for their own careers and an enrichment of their professional life.

Six interviews are already available online, featuring Louis Joseph Ignarro, Nobel prize for Medicine or Physiology 1998, Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology at the UCLA School of Medicine, US as well as member of the Scientific Committee of the “Fondazione Internazionale Menarini”; Marianne J. Legato, Emerita Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Columbia University and Adjunct Professor at the John Hopkins university; Fabrizio Benedetti, Director of the Medicine and Physiology of Hypoxia centre, Plateau Rosà and Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience at the Università di Torino; Donna Strickland, Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 and Professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada; Nick Fox, Professor of Clinical Neurology at the UCL, UK, and Director of the Dementia Research Center, UK; Valentin Fuster, General Director of the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlo III, Madrid and Director of the Cardiovascular Institute of the Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York; and lastly Tasuku Honjo, Nobel prize for Medicine or Physiology 2018 and Professor at the Kyoto University, Japan. 

The digital edition of Minuti and the Dialogs Beyond Borders initiative are another example of the Foundation’s constant commitment to looking to the future and promoting scientific and cultural dissemination worldwide in a stimulating, innovative and easily accessible way.