Harvard Medical School and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have announced the creation of a joint program aimed at improving the quality of life for people with neurological disabilities.

To that end, the Lausanne-based Bertarelli Foundation has awarded a $9 million grant to help launch the Bertarelli Program in Translational Neuroscience and Neuroengineering. Among other things, the grant will be used to create an endowment for a professorship in translational medical science whose inaugural incumbent, William Chin, executive dean for research at HMS, will oversee the development of the joint program, which seeks to create a pathway from device design at EPFL to clinical tests at HMS and build an exchange for students and researchers from the two institutions.

In addition, a Bertarelli grant program will be established in 2011 to suppport research projects by students and scientists from the two faculties, with research and coursework results to be shared at a joint symposium to be held annually, on a rotating basis, in Boston and Lausanne.

"I thought it would be an interesting idea to bring both faculties together to join forces in common projects, where each entity could contribute with its own core competences, the neuroengineering developments for EPFL and the experience in medical application to patients for HMS," said Ernesto Bertarelli, a Swiss entrepreneur and Harvard alumnus. "This project once again shows that Europe and America can collaborate to have a very competitive impact in the advancement of science."