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Advancing Fertility and Reproduction thrOugh Dedicated and Innovative Technological Applications

Project description

Ensuring the future of assisted reproduction

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have transformed fertility treatments, enabling millions to conceive. Since 1978, over nine million babies have been born through ART, and its use has surged more than fivefold in the past two decades. While ART has brought hope to many, studies suggest potential health risks for offspring, yet the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Key concerns include the effects of artificial embryo environments and parental age on long-term health. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the AFRODITA project tackles these challenges by launching an innovative, multidisciplinary research and training programme. Bringing together leading universities, research centres, hospitals, and enterprises, AFRODITA will train doctoral candidates, equipping them to advance ART safety.

Objective

The development of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) has provided an alternative for people with difficulties conceiving naturally, and over 9 million babies have been born through ART since 1978. Moreover, the use of ART has increased dramatically (5.3-fold) during the last two decades and this trend will continue. While ART have undoubtedly made a positive impact on the lives of couples and individuals dealing with infertility, numerous studies reported potentially negative ART-derived effects on the health of offspring. The mechanisms involved and their consequences are poorly understood and there are critical unanswered questions, including whether the manipulations and the artificial environments in which gametes and embryos are cultured, or the increased paternal and maternal age at the time when the treatments are applied entail ART-derived health risks. Thus, there is a growing need to advance research on ART consequences and propose holistic solutions, as well as to develop innovative training programmes to prepare new researchers to deal with such concerns. The AFRODITA (Advancing Fertility and Reproduction thrOugh Dedicated and Innovative Technological Applications) consortium takes up this challenge and aims to implement jointly an innovative international, multi-sectorial, and multidisciplinary research and training programme (Joint Doctorate) by bringing together key scientific staff from the academia (5 European universities and 3 excellent research centres), the largest hospital in Denmark and the corporate world (8 enterprises) with a history of fruitful collaboration, that will guarantee excellent training and effective supervision for AFRODITA’s 15 doctoral candidates to enhance their career opportunities for different professional paths.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

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Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE MURCIA
Net EU contribution
€ 755 913,60
Address
AVENIDA TENIENTE FLOMESTA S/N - EDIFICIO CONVALECENCIA
30003 Murcia
Spain

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Region
Sur Región de Murcia Murcia
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data

Participants (8)

Partners (8)

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