Project description
Innovative platform for neonatal neurological assessment
Neonatal neurological assessment and early recognition of abnormal findings can prevent delays in diagnosis and help initiate beneficial therapies. Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the INFANS project aims to develop an innovative neonatal brain monitoring system designed to overcome the severe shortage of clinical tools to monitor brain function in infancy. The aim is to prevent later-life neurological, cognitive and motor impairments. The consortium of partners from leading universities, industries and clinics has established a European PhD research training programme in biomedical engineering, signal processing and clinical procedures to create a new generation of young specialists. The work of these early stage researchers will culminate in a platform for high-quality, clinically viable non-invasive neonatal brain monitoring.
Objective
INFANS will train 15 ESRs with background from basic to clinical sciences in multiple aspects of neonatal brain monitoring. The need for a coordinated research training programme in neonatal brain monitoring arises from i) the severe shortage of clinically viable means to high quality monitor the brain function in infancy, crucial to prevent later life neurological, cognitive and motor impairment and ii) the lack of well-educated PhDs in this field. Through their individual research projects, encompassing technological innovation, industrial development, clinical validation, identification of neonatal healthcare needs, the INFANS ESRs will develop a novel platform for high quality, clinically-viable EEG-NIRS monitoring accessible worldwide. Excellent science, industrial leadership and societal challenge are merged in INFANS: 6 academic and 4 non-academic partner from 6 EU countries, among which leading universities, industries, clinical institutions, share complementary expertise and facilities to provide international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral research training and mobility that will complement local doctoral training. Well-targeted visits and secondments, soft skills and dynamic training activities, an Open Science strategy, extensive involvement of ESRs in the network events organization, extensive contacts with other research, training and industrial European networks, dissemination activities and the award of Double doctoral degrees are further assets of INFANS. The ESRs will learn to transform a scientific/technological challenge into a product of socio-economic relevance, as the INFANS functional neuro-monitoring system will reduce the number of children with neurological, cognitive or motor dysfunctions associated with brain injuries at birth. The INFANS ESRs will become independent researchers with career prospects in both the academic and non-academic sectors, and will advance the EU capacity for innovation in biomedical engineering.
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Coordinator
98693 Ilmenau
Germany