Progetti di ricerca

The FANTOM Doctoral Network (DN) composed of 8 beneficiaries and 12 associated partners in 6 EU countries, recruiting 10 researchers and will be embedded into an established international research programme: The European Research Initiative on Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK)-related malignancies… Leggi tutto (ERIA) as well as a clinical network: The European Intergroup for Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (EICNHL). FANTOM will cosset and nurture the recruited researchers to become confident, competent, independent and well-connected European scientists with excellent career perspectives welcomed into these established networks. This will be achieved through a training programme conducted through research and complemented by a balanced programme of transferable skills designed with key input from both academic and industrial collaborators. The training of each fellow will be guided by an individual career development plan and supervised by a PhD committee with clearly allocated academic and industrial supervisors. The primary goal of the network is to train the recruited fellows by participation in an internationally competitive research programme and integrating them into the aforementioned networks. The research programme will address the clinical problems posed by Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL) typified by aberrant ALK expression. Applying innovative model systems and multi-omics technologies, some performed to a single cell level, the biology of ALCL including the roles of the immune system and tumour stroma will be uncovered. These data will be applied to the development of (non-invasive) biomarkers and novel therapeutic approaches that will culminate in the design of clinical trials to address the issues of chemotherapy toxicity, over-treatment and drug resistance. The research and training activities will incorporate not only academic labs but also key research institutes, biotechnology companies, clinical trial bodies and Pharma to realise our research goals.

Haematological malignancies, also known as blood cancers, are a diverse and complex group of diseases that are difficult to diagnose and treat. Nowadays most treatments are extremely complex, and advances in patient diagnosis and treatment are slow due to the… Leggi tutto low number of patients per centre. There is therefore a need to harmonise, store, and analyse the current information on these diseases to speed up and support the decision-making process for patient access to new therapies. IMI’s HARMONY project is using big data to advance our understanding of the following seven blood cancers: acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL); acute myeloid leukaemia (AML); chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL); multiple myeloma (MM); myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS); non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL); and paediatric haematologic malignancies. HARMONY has set up a Big Data platform to support its work. The aim of HARMONY PLUS is to build on HARMONY’s work. Firstly, it will add the following blood cancers to the list of diseases under study: chronic myeloid leukemia, polycythaemia vera, essential thrombocythaemia, and myelofibrosis; as well as Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Waldenström macroglobulinemia and other rare blood cancers not covered by HARMONY. In addition, HARMONY PLUS will help to convert the existing HARMONY platform into an integrated services platform that could serve clinicians to improve their decision making process and support clinical trial design, among other things. Like HARMONY, HARMONY PLUS is part of IMI’s Big Data for Better Outcomes programme, which aims to facilitate the use of diverse data sources to deliver results that reflect health outcomes of treatments that are meaningful for patients, clinicians, regulators, researchers, healthcare decision-makers, and others.