Each participant received a thorough medical check-up at no cost to either him/her or the national health service, resulting in thousands of hours of free public health care. With a completely computerized system, Moli-sani is a "paperless" study, in which researchers and participants communicate using recently developed technologies such as mobile phone text messages (SMS). The biological data bank (the "MoliBank") is one of the largest in Europe. Paying particular attention towards innovation and new technologies, the Moli-sani study has placed itself at the cutting edge of a new paradigm crossing research and prevention