"Many patients with rare disorders now have diagnoses made through NGS and had previously spent years on an uninformative diagnostic odyssey enduring costly, time consuming, and sometimes invasive procedures associated with medical risks that are stressful for families and providers and imposing a heavy burden on the health-care system. NGS is found to be a less expensive option and significantly improves our diagnostic ability.The project's objectives were to improve healthcare across the breadth of medical specialities and carried out through the project's intellectual outputs (IO 1-4) and learning, teaching and training events. To be more specific, NGS studies the discovery of new genes and diagnosis of rare monogenic disorders, the identification and diagnosis of genetic factors contributing to common diseases, the prenatal diagnosis and testing, the personalised medicine, the gene therapy, and the genome editing.During the project, the consortium produced training material that cover the basic concepts of NGS technology and knowledge of new tools used for DNA sequencing. Furthermore, a registry was developed that contained data on undiagnosed cases and rare skeletal dysplasias as well as DNA samples that were analyzed through NGS technology. Finally, the consortium produced a mentoring guide that focuses on personalized treatment of rare diseases and on the importance of support that family provides in the affected member. All of the aforementioned material is easily and freely accessible to anyone from the on line training platform.During the learning, teaching and training activities, members of the University of Antwerpen and the Rizzoli Institute were given the chance to share their expertise and exchange knowledge on topics relevant to NGS in an effort to disseminate the knowledge to new generations.The IO2 on line training platform that hosts among others the training material produced in IO1, the Open NGeneS Resources produced in IO3, and the Mentoring Guide produced in IO4 has attracted 5292 visitors. The stakeholders that accessed and used the on line training platform in a frequent basis evaluated the overall output as ""excellent"" through feedback received.The participants' profile for this project was pre and post graduate university students, researchers, and medical doctors. In the multiplier events carried out through the project a total of 403 people registered. In the learning, teaching and training event 18 university students attended. Finally, the project's intellectual outputs (training material, open registry and mentoring guide) are hosted on the project's on line training platform which gathered over 5290 visitors.In conclusion, the project's results showed that NGS is an effective tool to diagnose genetically heterogeneous disorders in a clinical setting especially in young children in who all the clinical features may not be clinical evident or clear.This project provides students innovative research skills embedded in the era of artificial intelligence through the NGS, introduces personalized treatment through interpretation of DNA samples with NGS, enables partners to carry out joint research activities with other Universities, and provides a space for facilitating the sharing of knowledge and multidisciplinary cooperation opportunities for all participants."

<< Background >>Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are common across Europe, resulting lost days and permanent incapacity to work. The incidence and prevalence rates seem to be increasing, indicating a sub-optimal effect of contemporary approaches for the prevention of WMSDs. The European Knowledge Alliance “Prevent4Work” was created to improve the current management strategies of WMSDs by developing and implementing innovative teaching modules based on new technologies.<< Objectives >>The Prevent4Work Project aims to establish a network connecting higher education institutions, ITC enterprise and clinical expertise, which will identify gaps in the existing educational resources focusing on occupational health. Moreover, innovative educational programmes will be introduced, adaptive mobile Health tools will be developed that can deliver high quality evidence-based material to prevent WMSDs in Europe.<< Implementation >>The Prevent4Work Project is a consortium consisting of universities, enterprises and hospitals in Spain, Denmark, and Italy. The target groups are workers and enterprises from different activity sectors and healthcare professionals and students. The project consists of 9 work packages, including a state of-the-art review, the development of a risk assessment questionnaire and an open access educative training platform.<< Results >>The Prevent4Work Project has organized 3 symposiums, including 1 Ideas Contest, with more 1,045 participants; 4 webinars for workers, trainers and health professionals with 1,811 participants; 6 online training courses and 2 MOOCs with 2,423 unique users. Furthermore, more than 1,500 workers have participated in our pilot actions. Additionally, we have published 4 scientific articles, 1 practical guideline for trainers and 1 strategic guideline for integration into Universities Curricula.

Spontaneous healing of articular cartilage injuries is poor and untreated defects predispose to osteoarthritis. Current therapies, including innovative autologous cell-based treatments, cannot predictably and reproducibly restore cartilage structure and function. BIOCHIP will carry out a multicenter, prospective phase II clinical trial to treat knee cartilage injuries using engineered grafts based on autologous nasal chondrocytes (NC). As compared to typically employed articular chondrocytes, NC have a higher and more reproducible capacity to generate mature cartilage tissues. Importantly, molecular/mechanical characterization, large size animal studies and a phase I trial carried out by BIOCHIP partners have already shown the compatibility of NC upon implantation in a joint, with promising preliminary clinical results. BIO-CHIP’s specific objectives are: (1) To test the hypothesis that the maturation of NC-based cartilage grafts improves the clinical efficacy in the treatment of cartilage lesions (108 patients will be recruited to reach statistical significance) (2) To extend the range of clinical indications of NC-based grafts to so far untreatable pre-osteoarthritic lesions (‘kissing’ cartilage lesions in a sheep model) BIO-CHIP capitalizes on clinical experience of 4 reference centers for cartilage surgery, on established GMP manufacturing capacity and on preparation for commercial exploitation by a strong orthopedic device company. Demonstration of therapeutic efficacy of the new treatment will address a large clinical need (over 2 million cartilage defects/year worldwide), improve quality of life (reduce pain & disability in the young, delay prosthetic implants in the elderly), exploit a commercial opportunity (prospected revenues of up to 130 million €/year) and reduce healthcare costs (estimated 12,000€ healthcare savings/procedure). BIO-CHIP will consolidate the currently leading role of Europe in the development of cell-based cartilage regeneration strate