ResOrtho: BALGRIST CAMPUS

The Balgrist environment (ResOrtho and Campus) in Switzerland represents a leading educational and research institute in the world. Switzerland can only maintain its reputation and attractiveness as long as the Swiss and institutions like the Balgrist Campus in particular, are able to invest in the future. We believe in the Balgrist!
Former Federal Councillor Johann Schneider-Amman
The Balgrist Campus is a concept that has successfully implemented the requirements for innovative, promising research. I was privilegded to accompany and support the emergence of the Campus from its idea, to ist realization and success.
Dr. Hansjörg Wyss
I do not believe in transmission of knowledge, but in the transmission of enthusiasm.
Prof. Dr. Christian Gerber

THE CAMPUS

The so far largest project of ResOrtho was realized in close cooperation with the Balgrist Foundation. Based on a ResOrtho initiative in 2009, substantial funds could be raised by benefactors and supporters and a concept of a unique musculoskeletal research and development institute in the immediate vicinity of the University Hospital Balgrist was elaborated.

Convinced by the at the time unusual concept, Dr. Hansjörg Wyss was ready to generously support the creation of this center and opened the door to other benefactors so that a musculoskeletal institute could be created without any tax money. Substantial contributions came from the Zürich lottery fund and from third persons.

In 2010 ResOrtho and the Balgrist founded the Balgrist Campus non-for-profit stock corporation. Within 5 years, concept, architecture and operations were conceived and realized, the inaugural ceremony took place in the presence of the Swiss Federal Councilor J. Schneider Ammann and representatives of the university, government and industry on December 4, 2015. To this date the research institution is a non-for-profit organization dedicated to improve the human condition by preventing or successfully treating musculoskeletal injury and disease.

The Balgrist Campus has the mission to bring patients, physicians, researchers and industry together. Particularly «hot» topics which are close to a breakthrough are prioritized and the Balgrist Campus tries to bring in international top researchers to realize these breakthroughs. For this purpose, a group sabbatical was created with which international leaders with their closest collaborators visit the Campus for 3 to 12 months and collaborate with their peers in view of solving a priority problem. In a very successful pilot project Prof. Samuel Ward, Chief of Research for Orthopaedics and Bioengineering at the University of California San Diego and Director of the Muscle Lab spent a year at Balgrist Campus in 2016 and confirmed that this would be a superb project for the future to advance the Campus and the science. Thereafter Prof. N. Navab from Munich had a similar arrangement and contributed very substantial to the advancement of augmented and virtual reality projects in orthopaedics.

We are happy to provide you with further information in view of the continuous support of the group sabbatical.

WEBSITE BALGRIST CAMPUS

Architecture

The architecture of the campus plays a huge role: The research groups and manufacturers work over several overlapping areas, in open spaces, in common and individual facilities and are therefore interacting with each other constantly. Bringing people and ideas together takes research and development to the pinnacle of the possible.

At Balgrist Campus, the challenges in musculoskeletal medicine are tackled in a comprehensive manner by research groups specialising in muscles, biomechanics, robotics, tumours and metastases, paraplegia and clinical orthopaedics consolidating their knowledge and developing modern therapeutic approaches. The skill base at the Balgrist University Hospital is thus maximized and makes it the leading facility in Europe.

DESIGNATION AS A RESEARCH INSTITUTION OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE

The Balgrist Campus was already enlarged in 2016 with a spectacular, newly designed, and fully connected underground building to host the Swiss Centers for Musculoskeletal imaging, Biobanking and Movement Analysis. The creation of these three research platforms became possible through the accreditation of the Campus as a research infrastructure of national relevance and substantial start-up funding by the Swiss government. By law, the government is not allowed to fund more than 50% of the investments , the Resortho Foundation which has a 60% stake at the Campus is held to contribute to financing future operations and success and therefore needs contributions of third parties interested in improving the human condition.

The newly conceptualized research unit has received federal approval and funding for three highly specialized and relevant research platforms considered optimally suited for the advancement of understanding and treating musculoskeletal disease: These platforms consist of a center for musculoskeletal imaging, a center for musculoskeletal biobanking and a center for movement analysis.

SWISS CENTER FOR MUSCULOSKELETAL IMAGING

The mission of the Swiss Center of Musculoskeletal Imaging (SCMI) is to develop and apply new and better methods for imaging of the human body reaching from the cellular level to the moving body. A physicist led research group collaborates and largely benefits from the very close collaboration with the world-leading Division of Radiology of the Orthopaedic Balgrist University Hospital from where clinical question come, are translated into research projects with their results aiming at providing clinically relevant solutions.

SWISS CENTER FOR MUSCULOSKELETAL BIOBANKING

The mission of the Swiss Center of Musculoskeletal Biobanking (SCMB) is to serve as a hub for national or international multi-center or monocentric studies involving collection, processing, storing, archiving, and analyzing biological tissue samples for musculoskeletal research. It is the goal of the Center to connect the tissue information to imaging and clinical data to ultimately provide comprehensive patient data which will allow big data analysis by artificial intelligence and thereby improve patient outcome.

SWISS CENTER FOR MOVEMENT ANALYSIS

The mission of the Swiss Center of Movement Analysis (SCMA) is to profoundly understand human motion in health and disease. It provides methods and technologies of movement analysis in health and disease quantitative assessment of improvement of human function, assessment of treatment and rehabilitation tools to assist in the development and validation of new and better forms of treatment.

BALGRIST CAMPUS