COmplement Regulation and Variations in Opportunistic infectionS

Project Information

CORVOS

Grant agreement ID: 860044

DOI

10.3030/860044

Project closed

EC signature date 4 September 2019

Start date 1 December 2019

End date 31 January 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 4 088 951,28

EU contribution

€ 4 088 951,28

Coordinated by

MEDIZINISCHE UNIVERSITAT INNSBRUCK
Austria

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CORVOS (COmplement Regulation and Variations in Opportunistic infectionS)

Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2024-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Problem/issue
Opportunistic infections are infections which are predominantly affecting patients which do not have a fully functional immune system, either already from birth onwards, or acquired later, e.g. by drugs which downmodulate the immune system. Thus, in addition to the infections everybody will get, these patients also suffer from infections normally defended by a functional immune system. The pathogens involved in these opportunistic infections comprise all sorts of bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites and altogether these are the top killers worldwide.
The immune system is very complex and consists of both cellular and humoral, i.e. liquid, parts, the latter containing a lot of proteins. One part of the immune system is already present a birth, called innate immune system, and another part develops during life, called acquired immune system. The target of this study is an important part of the humoral, innate, immune system, a cascade of proteins, called “complement system”. This is a major and crucial force in defending opportunistic infections.
These infections are increasing, incompletely understood (as hardly unknown 55 years ago, before the advent of immunosuppressive drugs) and pose an enormous threat for all heath systems and cost a lot of money. They are therefore of utmost importance for all societies.

Overall objectives
The overall aim of CORVOS, for COmplement Regulation and Variation in Opportunistic infectionS, was to train 15 widely recruited and highly motivated early stage researchers, ESRs, on one hand and to learn more about the regulations and variations of complement in these infections (work package (WP) 1), decipher evasion mechanisms employed by the pathogens (WP 2), develop new diagnostic tools (WP 3) and inaugurate novel prevention and treatment measures (WP 4) on the other.
Further aims were on one hand to improve the training of the ESRs to increase their scientific knowledge and transferable skills (WP 5) and to award them with a joint or double PhD by two European universities. Communication and dissemination activities (WP 6) aimed to promote CORVOS as an ambitious pan-European initiative of 10 European universities, 3 biomedical companies, 5 research institutes and 2 hospitals. Besides an excellent and comprehensive management of the entire project (WP 7), a very important aim was to keep the output for the future within sustainable actions (WP 8).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

CORVOS successfully started in December 2019. All 15 ESR positions were advertised on public available platforms and highly versatile and eligible candidates were selected in centralized interviews by the CORVOS Beneficiaries. All of them were employed with a working contract. The students (ESRs) established an own network and all were enrolled in local PhD programmes with joint supervision by at least two CORVOS supervisors. For the scientific WPs 1-4, all research projects kicked-off successfully. Combined research was performed and exploited to a high extent, as it already led to a patent and 47 scientific publications focussing on different facets of the project.
In WP 5, all ESRs signed career development plans with their supervisors. Teaching and training events were successfully held, both online and face-to-face. All ESRs spent at least 6 months abroad in a partner institute and some even took extended industrial secondments in addition to the short one, obligatory to all. The interdisciplinary doctoral programme provided not only a short cross-sectoral industrial secondment, but also clinical training in hospitals with the special feature that also non-medical ESRs were taught at the bed-side. Training in transferrable skills completed this educational part.
For WP 6, all the activities are constantly published in local dissemination media (radio, newspaper) and all these milestones were not only accomplished, but really successful. CORVOS went to schools and to the public, as nicely illustrated on the CORVOS homepage (www.corvos.eu).
Management of CORVOS (WP 7) was without major problems, but when issues of 11 Beneficiaries always have to be taken into account, some intuition is definitely helpful. It would have been easier, if all universities would uniformly have PhDs after 3 years of study and if the EU grant itself would fund a period of 5 years to cover some extensions. With the present format only two out of 15 graduated.
For WP 8, eight of the thirteen internationally renowned multidisciplinary CORVOS scientists are members of the European Complement Network (ECN), the CORVOS speaker Würzner was even its president for 5 years, 2017-2022, covering almost three quarters of the CORVOS funding period. This established organization did actually accept and embed a high quality and efficient CORVOS training programme: The ECN mobility certificate, issued to all students working on complement and studying at least 6 months at an institute abroad, and the ECN mobility grant, funding this endeavour for two students annually, are magnificent outcomes of CORVOS. The most and completely invaluable sustained outcome of CORVOS is the intense network the ESRs have established among themselves.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The progress beyond the state of art consisted in the fact that the Beneficiaries learned to officially cooperate, to sign consortium agreements and to set up a governance structure across Europe. This has a big socio-economic impact on the way to a unified research cooperation in Europe. One step in this direction was the fact that the CORVOS universities finalized and certified agreements for the award of double or joint degrees.
Another milestone was the unexpected result that CORVOS, although also having its difficulties with the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, eventually fulfilled all deliverables and milestones. An important factor was that the Beneficiaries reacted very flexible, for instance when planning hearings and secondments.
The sustainable influence CORVOS made on an existing research society, the European Complement Network, was probably the least expected progress beyond art.
All the multiple achievements are visible at the CORVOS homepage (www. corvos.eu).