Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EATRIS-Plus (Consolidating the capacities of EATRIS-ERIC for Personalised Medicine)
Período documentado: 2021-07-01 hasta 2022-12-31
The overarching aim of EATRIS-Plus is to support the long-term sustainability (LTS) of EATRIS by delivering innovative scientific tools to the research community, strengthening the infrastructure’s financial model and reinforcing EATRIS leadership in the European Research Area (ERA), particularly in the field of Personalised Medicine (PM) research and development.
PM research seeks to identify interventions that can be targeted to individual patients based on their predicted response. This has substantial value for patients, as it can reduce trial-and-error treatments, enable better choices for determining which medications would be most effective, which in turn can help to manage rising healthcare costs.
The role of multi-omic technologies in the advancement of PM are vital. Efficient advancement of PM depends on the availability of validated patient-targeted biomarkers. However, as our capacity to identify genetic variants associated with complex diseases increases, these do not fully recapitulate the resulting disease phenotypes, and a more precise understanding of the molecular profiles are needed. Hence the consortium’s ambition is to deliver a Multi-omics Toolbox to support cross-omic analysis and data integration in clinical samples.
The Multi-omics Toolbox will include Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), guidelines for best practices, reference materials, quality parameters, analysis tools, criteria for establishing reference values, and will provide access to a repository of multi-omics data, and will be made available to the entire life sciences research community completely free of charge. The omic tools developed are tested with a real-world healthy demonstrator cohort in the Czech Republic, upon whom genomic sequencing has already been performed. The human biological samples from this cohort were analysed by laboratories across Europe (Sweden, Netherland, Spain and Finland) and transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic data was produced. To that end EATRIS-Plus works towards improving the understanding, data-sharing, and clinical needs of how gene, protein, mRNA and metabolite analysis will directly impact PM solutions.
In short EATRIS-Plus helps pooling and exploiting the translational academic capacities of the infrastructure in omic technologies to enable researchers to better address the scientific and societal challenge of PM.
Additionally, the EATRIS hub and 14 national nodes of the infrastructure participate in implementing joint outreach, training, patient engagement, industry engagement and international collaboration activities to further build national capacity, increase users’ trust and strengthen EATRIS and the ERA’s global scientific leadership.
PM research seeks to identify interventions that can be targeted to individual patients based on their predicted response. This has substantial value for patients, as it can reduce trial-and-error treatments, enable better choices for determining which medications would be most effective, which in turn can help to manage rising healthcare costs.
The role of multi-omic technologies in the advancement of PM are vital. Efficient advancement of PM depends on the availability of validated patient-targeted biomarkers. However, as our capacity to identify genetic variants associated with complex diseases increases, these do not fully recapitulate the resulting disease phenotypes, and a more precise understanding of the molecular profiles are needed. Hence the consortium’s ambition is to deliver a Multi-omics Toolbox to support cross-omic analysis and data integration in clinical samples.
The Multi-omics Toolbox will include Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), guidelines for best practices, reference materials, quality parameters, analysis tools, criteria for establishing reference values, and will provide access to a repository of multi-omics data, and will be made available to the entire life sciences research community completely free of charge. The omic tools developed are tested with a real-world healthy demonstrator cohort in the Czech Republic, upon whom genomic sequencing has already been performed. The human biological samples from this cohort were analysed by laboratories across Europe (Sweden, Netherland, Spain and Finland) and transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic data was produced. To that end EATRIS-Plus works towards improving the understanding, data-sharing, and clinical needs of how gene, protein, mRNA and metabolite analysis will directly impact PM solutions.
In short EATRIS-Plus helps pooling and exploiting the translational academic capacities of the infrastructure in omic technologies to enable researchers to better address the scientific and societal challenge of PM.
Additionally, the EATRIS hub and 14 national nodes of the infrastructure participate in implementing joint outreach, training, patient engagement, industry engagement and international collaboration activities to further build national capacity, increase users’ trust and strengthen EATRIS and the ERA’s global scientific leadership.
EATRIS-Plus project is implemented in nine Work Packages (WPs). WPs 1-3 are dedicated to the scientific output – the Multiomics Toolbox. Other WPs support the efforts of long-term sustainability, outreach and engagement with industry and patient organisations, developing new collaborations with similar European and global initiatives and organisations, training, and management.
While the project enters its 4th and final year of implementation the main scientific output – the Multi-omics Toolbox is in pilot phase and undergoing tests with the consortium and other key stakeholder groups. Another important development is the EATRIS Commitment to Quality Certificate (ECCQ), similarly in pilot phase of application at this stage.
The ambitious capacity-building programme continues for all 14 national nodes and has to date delivered 9 capacity building workshops and supported the task of national nodes strategic plans development. In 2022 the Staff Exchange Programme was launched to support the knowledge and best practices exchange between all EATRIS nodes and member institutes’ staff.
In April 2022 the European Alliance of Medical Research Infrastructures (EU-AMRI) (https://eu-amri.org/ ) was launched in Brussels and collaborations with national nodes of BBMRI and ECRIN have started to take place.
The project has been successful in engaging various stakeholder groups, and in particular the patient community as well as industry representatives (SMEs, bioclusters and big pharma companies). In addition to the Patient Advisory Committee (PAC) formed in 2020, a joint advocacy programme was launched with the European Patients’ Forum (EPF) and close collaboration continues with the European Patient Academy on Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI). The jointly developed Patient Engagement Resource Centre to help academic researchers get started with patient engagement is in pilot phase and will be launched to the community in March 2023.
EATRIS hub and the nodes performed outreach to industry by organising and participating in numerous partnering and matchmaking events (i.e the Nordic Life Science Days) and two workshops on Industry-Academia Collaboration have taken place.
From community training perspective some important milestones have been met with two Summer Schools in Personalised Medicine held, the third taking place in April 2023 and the TransMed Academy (https://eatris.eu/transmed-academy/ ) online learning environment upgraded.
Global collaboration continues with the Translation Together (https://translationtogether.org/) and NewFound (https://newfoundmed.org/what-we-do/) initiatives and the efforts to launch the Translational Toolbox for Global Researchers were synergised and merged with the EJPRD Innovation Management Toolbox (https://imt.ejprarediseases.org/ ) launched in 2022.
While the project enters its 4th and final year of implementation the main scientific output – the Multi-omics Toolbox is in pilot phase and undergoing tests with the consortium and other key stakeholder groups. Another important development is the EATRIS Commitment to Quality Certificate (ECCQ), similarly in pilot phase of application at this stage.
The ambitious capacity-building programme continues for all 14 national nodes and has to date delivered 9 capacity building workshops and supported the task of national nodes strategic plans development. In 2022 the Staff Exchange Programme was launched to support the knowledge and best practices exchange between all EATRIS nodes and member institutes’ staff.
In April 2022 the European Alliance of Medical Research Infrastructures (EU-AMRI) (https://eu-amri.org/ ) was launched in Brussels and collaborations with national nodes of BBMRI and ECRIN have started to take place.
The project has been successful in engaging various stakeholder groups, and in particular the patient community as well as industry representatives (SMEs, bioclusters and big pharma companies). In addition to the Patient Advisory Committee (PAC) formed in 2020, a joint advocacy programme was launched with the European Patients’ Forum (EPF) and close collaboration continues with the European Patient Academy on Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI). The jointly developed Patient Engagement Resource Centre to help academic researchers get started with patient engagement is in pilot phase and will be launched to the community in March 2023.
EATRIS hub and the nodes performed outreach to industry by organising and participating in numerous partnering and matchmaking events (i.e the Nordic Life Science Days) and two workshops on Industry-Academia Collaboration have taken place.
From community training perspective some important milestones have been met with two Summer Schools in Personalised Medicine held, the third taking place in April 2023 and the TransMed Academy (https://eatris.eu/transmed-academy/ ) online learning environment upgraded.
Global collaboration continues with the Translation Together (https://translationtogether.org/) and NewFound (https://newfoundmed.org/what-we-do/) initiatives and the efforts to launch the Translational Toolbox for Global Researchers were synergised and merged with the EJPRD Innovation Management Toolbox (https://imt.ejprarediseases.org/ ) launched in 2022.
EATRIS-Plus uses cutting-edge academic expertise and technology services to help de-risk and improve the flow of academic and industry developments downstream towards the patient, reducing barriers to public-private and public-public collaboration, facilitating the development of novel patient-targeted diagnostic and therapy interventions necessary for the adoption of PM. The project will also support the development of analytical tools and operational models to reduce the cost and time associated with early medicines development, thereby enhancing biomedical innovation at European and global levels.
The main expected scientific impacts are enhanced access for academics and researchers to translational tools and expertise and more efficient use of Personalised Medicine solutions at the clinical level. In terms of economic impact we see faster development of patient-targeted diagnostic and therapy products, and higher return on investment in fundamental research. The most important societal impacts are patients’ improved access to individually-targeted innovative therapeutic products, and society’s meaningful participation in research and innovation through better understanding of the role of science in society. In terms of human capital impact we foresee better-trained clinicians in the use of translational medicine tools, and finally for policy impact the efficient implementation of action plans for Personalised Medicine and stronger global EU leadership and consolidation of the biomedical RI landscape.
The main expected scientific impacts are enhanced access for academics and researchers to translational tools and expertise and more efficient use of Personalised Medicine solutions at the clinical level. In terms of economic impact we see faster development of patient-targeted diagnostic and therapy products, and higher return on investment in fundamental research. The most important societal impacts are patients’ improved access to individually-targeted innovative therapeutic products, and society’s meaningful participation in research and innovation through better understanding of the role of science in society. In terms of human capital impact we foresee better-trained clinicians in the use of translational medicine tools, and finally for policy impact the efficient implementation of action plans for Personalised Medicine and stronger global EU leadership and consolidation of the biomedical RI landscape.