On one side the advancement of knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms underlying the life processes and their pathological changes, on the other transfer of new knowledge to the world of health. These objectives closely involve the development of skills, methods and edge technologies and bring out the opportunity to enhance economic and social research and discoveries, both in industry and in health protection of people.
These objectives require the integration of statistical and epidemiological sciences, information technology, engineering, chemical-pharmaceutical and biological, aimed at different aspects of the knowledge of the diseases: from underlying mechanisms to nosographic and epidemiological classification, to diagnostic images and biochemistry, to therapy. Considering that frontier research must continuously move forward the boundaries of its action, the department also sets aims to boost at research, in a policy of careful assessment of the quality, by facilitating the acquisition of external funding at national and international level.
Major projects (intra and interdepartmental) currently are:
• Ageing Project: aimed at understanding the mechanisms of aging and age-related diseases, currently involving many DSB institutes. Project website: Invecchiamento.
• Personalized Medicine Rewarding Project: taking advantage of the latest sequencing techniques, deals with one of the hottest topics of the therapeutic approaches in the near future.
• InterOmics Project: the core of the project consists of the "omics" sciences (genomics, epigenomics, proteomics, interactomics together with bioinformatics and other derived disciplines) brought forward by a few DSB institutes, mainly carried out by groups from external sources, anyhow closely associated with CNR. al CNR.
• Euro-Bioimaging Research infrastructure Project: initiative based on an infrastructure project that has already had a European acknowledgment and received conspicuous funding. The project stands in between basic biology and the most advanced techniques of molecular and cellular imaging, the very latest medical diagnostics concerning neurology, cardiology and oncology.

It is also worth mentioning some intra-departmental Rewarding Projects currently still under evaluation by the Ministry of Education: Neuroscience, Cardiovascular Diseases, Oncology, Celiac Disease; also two research infrastructure projects:  ESFRI Proteomics  and Cellular Imaging.

About social needs, DSB feels strongly called to contribute to:
• promote and disseminate scientific culture;
• raise the technical and scientific skill level, with particular reference to the younger generations;
• provide expertise for the evaluation of intellectual capital in biomedical disciplines.

Main areas

• Bioinformatics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology applied to Life Sciences and Biomedicine

• Molecular libraries, "intelligent drugs"

• Molecular Imaging

• Human microbiome and new antibiotics

• Nanomedicine, Personalized and Regenerative Medicine

• E-Health (telemedicine, medical imaging, virtual medicine)