Italy's national infectious disease hospital providing clinical validation for rapid diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics against high-consequence pathogens.
INMI Spallanzani is Italy's national reference hospital and research centre for infectious diseases, based in Rome. They specialize in clinical management, diagnostics, and vaccine evaluation for high-consequence pathogens including Ebola, HIV, tuberculosis, and coronaviruses. Their core contribution to EU projects is providing clinical expertise, patient cohorts, and BSL-3/4 laboratory capacity for validating new diagnostic tools and therapeutic approaches. As an IRCCS (Scientific Hospitalization and Care Institute), they bridge clinical care with translational research, making them a critical partner for projects that need real-world clinical validation of infectious disease technologies.
Central to PITBUL (laser PCR for TB), CoNVat (nanobiosensors for COVID), DECISION (miniaturized molecular platform), KRONO (portable RT-qPCR), FILODIAG, EbolaMoDRAD, VHFMoDRAD, and Mofina — all focused on bedside or field-deployable diagnostic devices.
Participated in IF-EBOla, EVIDENT, Mofina, FILODIAG, EbolaMoDRAD, PEVIA (pan-Ebola vaccine), and VHFMoDRAD — spanning diagnostics, clinical management, and vaccine evaluation for filoviruses.
Partner in EVAg and EVA-GLOBAL (European Virus Archive for reference virus collections), ERINHA2 and ERINHA-Advance (European infrastructure for highly pathogenic agents).
Joined CoNVat, EXSCALATE4CoV (drug repurposing via HPC screening), DECISION, and KRONO in direct response to COVID-19, contributing clinical validation capacity.
TBVAC2020 (advancing TB vaccine candidates) and PITBUL (ultra-fast laser PCR for multi-drug resistant TB at point-of-care).
Partner in EHVA (European HIV Vaccine Alliance), contributing immunology and virology platforms for prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine evaluation.
In 2014–2018, INMI's work centred on Ebola outbreak response and foundational infectious disease infrastructure — filovirus diagnostics (IF-EBOla, FILODIAG, Mofina, EbolaMoDRAD), virus archive collections (EVAg), TB vaccines (TBVAC2020), and HIV vaccine platforms (EHVA). From 2019 onward, the focus shifted decisively toward portable, point-of-care diagnostic platforms and rapid molecular testing, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic — projects like CoNVat, DECISION, KRONO, and EXSCALATE4CoV all targeted fast, deployable testing and drug discovery for coronaviruses. There is also a clear move from pure clinical participation toward technology validation, with INMI increasingly serving as the clinical proving ground for diagnostic devices developed by engineering and biotech partners.
INMI is moving from pathogen-specific outbreak response toward becoming a permanent clinical validation hub for rapid, portable diagnostic technologies across multiple infectious diseases.
INMI exclusively participates as a partner — they have never coordinated an H2020 project, which is typical of clinical research hospitals whose primary mission is patient care, not project management. They work in large consortia (216 unique partners across 21 projects), contributing specialized clinical and laboratory capabilities rather than leading technical development. This makes them a reliable, low-friction partner: they bring clinical validation capacity, patient access, and high-containment lab infrastructure without competing for the coordination role.
INMI has built an extensive network of 216 unique partners across 37 countries, reflecting their involvement in large pandemic-preparedness and diagnostics consortia. Their partnerships span from European research hospitals and universities to diagnostic device SMEs and pharmaceutical companies through IMI2 joint undertaking projects.
INMI Spallanzani is Italy's designated national infectious disease institute with BSL-3/4 facilities, giving them unique access to live high-consequence pathogens (Ebola, SARS-CoV-2) that most partners in a consortium simply cannot handle. Their dual status as both a hospital (IRCCS) and a research centre means they can take a diagnostic prototype from the lab bench to real patient samples under clinical conditions in one institution. For any consortium developing infectious disease diagnostics or therapeutics that needs clinical validation with actual pathogen samples, INMI is one of a handful of European centres that can deliver this.
