International Congress on: Half a Century of Medicine - Looking Towards the Future

INTRO SPEECH - Opening Remarks by the Congress Presidents 

Fifty years is both a long time and, in the history of medicine, barely a breath. 

Yet the pace of transformation we have witnessed since 1976, the year Fondazione Menarini was founded, has been nothing short of extraordinary. 

When the Fondazione Menarini was established, coronary stenting did not exist, catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation was unimaginable, cardiac resynchronization therapy was decades away, and the molecular underpinnings of heart failure, cardiomyopathies, and pulmonary hypertension remained largely unexplored. 

In metabolic medicine, the landscape of type 2 diabetes treatment was limited to a handful of agents, obesity was barely recognized as a disease, and the concept of precision medicine in diabetes heterogeneity had yet to emerge. 

Respiratory medicine, similarly, was on the threshold of a revolution that would bring biological therapies for severe asthma, new disease-modifying strategies for COPD and interstitial lung diseases, and the recognition of bronchiectasis as a condition deserving dedicated clinical attention. 

Over the two days of this meeting, leading international experts will guide us through half a century of landmark achievements in cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic diseases — not as a retrospective exercise, but as a foundation for understanding where the most promising frontiers lie. 

We will hear from the very protagonists of some of the most transformative advances in clinical medicine and we will explore the evolving understanding of cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic diseases. 

We will also examine how artificial intelligence will reshape medicine and the medical activity. 

Two Special Lectures will offer complementary perspectives on how our understanding of disease continues to evolve. 

One will focus on the remarkable progress in gender medicine, reminding us that our interpretation of disease is closely linked to the populations we study. 

The other will explore how the integration of metabolic networks and genomic insights is reshaping our approach to complex diseases, opening the way to more truly individualized care. 

Over these five decades, the Fondazione Menarini has played a consistent and distinguished role in fostering scientific exchange, nurturing the dialogue between academia and clinical practice, and supporting the dissemination of medical knowledge across disciplines and borders. 

This congress is both a celebration of that legacy and a forward-looking commitment to the work that still lies ahead. 

Welcome to Florence. 

Welcome to the next fifty years 

Co-Presidents of the Meeting 

Linda Vignozzi & Louis J. Ignarro