NeuroTec Sitem opening

Two years ago, the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine, SITEM-Insel, has opened its doors. On September 14, 2021, from 4 to 7 pm at Felix Frey auditorium, outstanding personalities from politics, medicine, and science were welcomed at the official NeuroTec Sitem opening.
The main aim of NeuroTec is to develop novel technologies to enable the translation of personalized diagnostics and therapeutic interventions from the clinic to the patient’s home.
The program of the welcome day followed a red line, talks about regional, national, and international innovation.
Exciting lectures and a roundtable discussion were followed with an «Apéro riche» and it was possible to visit the NeuroTec Loft and selected SITEM-Insel facilities. The day was split into four sections: Welcome Address, Scientific Session, Roundtable, «Apéro riche» and tour of SITEM-Insel facilities.
The CEO of the SITEM-Insel, Dr. Simon Rothen, and the Professor Claudio Bassetti, Chair of the Neurology Department at the Insel Hospital and Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of Bern hosted the first section welcoming Pierre Alain Schnegg, Director of Health, Social Affairs and Integration of the Cantonal Government in Bern and Professor Bernhard Pulver, Chairman of the Board of Directors in the Insel Group.
The scientific session was hosted by the NeuroTec Director, Professor Kaspar Schindler.
The selected speakers gave presentations about their current research work. The first presenter was Professor Athina Tzovara from the Institute of Computer Science and Interfaculty Research Cooperation: Decoding Sleep at the University of Bern. She is also associated with the Neurology Department of the University Hospital in Bern. The presentation was followed by Professor Flavio Fröhlich from the Departments of Psychiatry and Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina in the USA that joined the meeting online due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. The third guest to the scientific session was Dr. Abbas Rahimi from IBM Research Lab in Zürich followed by Dr. Maxime Baud from the Neurology Department at the University Hospital in Bern. He is also part of the Wyss Center in Geneva. The last speaker of this session was Professor Tobias Nef of the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Bern.
The Roundtable session was hosted again by Professor Claudio Bassetti and Professor Daniel Buser, President Board of Directors at the SITEM-Insel in Bern.
The five guests of the roundtable were Dr. Mary Tolikas, Chief Executive Officer of the Wyss Center in Geneva and former Operations Director at the Wyss Institute in Harvard, USA, and Christoph Ammann from the Cantonal Government in Bern. He is Director of Economy, Energy, and Environment. Moreover, there were Dr. Uwe E. Jocham, President of the Management Board at the Insel Group; Professor Emanuele Carpanzano, Director of the Department of Innovative Technologies at SUPSI in Lugano; and finally, Professor Robert Riener from the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at the ETH Zurich.
The rich aperitif offered by NeuroTec was a great networking opportunity among national and international politicians, physicians, and scientists followed by a guided tour of NeuroTec Loft (Figure 1) and several facilities of SITEM-Insel (Figure 2).

Visit NeuroTec website: https://www.neuro-tec.ch/

Schindler KA, Nef T, Baud M, et al. NeuroTec sitem-insel : the Bernese approach to bring neurology to the patient ’ s home. Published online 2021:1-11