DeLIVERY aims to build a radically new technology for personalized health care, which provides, for the first time, the possibility to investigate polypharmacy on individual patients. Polypharmacy is the effect that the many combinations and permutations of drug mixtures which are typically prescribed to the chronically sick or the elderly population (e.g. painkillers, beta blockers, blood thinners, anti-depressants, and statins) have on the human body. Polypharmacy is becoming a major issue in the ageing population, as well over 10% of hospital admissions for people over 60 years of age are due to currently unknown interactions of the multiple drugs being prescribed by the specialized physicians and general practitioners routinely visited by the elderly. Currently, no single platform exists that can be utilized in a highly parallelized fashion to monitor such effects at the cellular and tissue level. DeLIVERY will provide an integrated microphysiological system (MPS) culture and microscopic imaging platform specifically for the purpose of maintaining, treating and long-term imaging of patient-specific cells within their microenvironment. This MPS platform will allow physicians, biomedical scientists, and researchers to determine the individual response of human tissue biopsies to a combination of multiple drugs. DeLIVERY will enable individualized treatment options providing essential tools towards a better quality of life for older people by allowing improved personalized healthcare. Novel medicines with the potential to reverse the effects of ageing and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) will be tested within typical polypharmacy contexts to determine possible interactions, and the DeLIVERY MPS system will be the purpose-built platform to provide this service. Such a system also requires a paradigm shift in microscopy - away from the single, bulky instrument providing one imaging modality towards compact and modular, yet still high-end, devices.

Due to lack of targeted interventions, compliance issues, insufficient effect sizes and a high non-responder rate to currently available interventions, there is an urgent need to develop innovative and new interventions for chronic paediatric neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to be an innovative, effective and safe alternative treatment approach for neuropsychiatric disorders in adults. Here, for the first time, the effect of tDCS on core neurocognitive and behavioral outcomes will be proven in children and adolescents. First, effect sizes and safety of standard tDCS in the clinical setting targeting core brain regions and disorder specific cognitive tasks will be established by three phase-IIa randomized, double blind, sham-controlled studies in ADHD and ASD. Second, the impact of brain development and age-dependent anatomical / functional features on effects of tDCS will be studied systematically using methods of modern neurophysiology, neuroimaging and electric current modeling. This involves an additional phase-I clinical trial. Third, mechanisms of tDCS on brain function will be studied, and biomarkers will be developed in order to predict individual response to standard and individualized stimulation protocols. Finally, the applicability of tDCS in children and adolescents will be improved by developing an innovative personalized home-based treatment option in combination with a telemental health service, which will be tested by a fifth, phase-IIa clinical trial. Throughout the entire project, ethical concerns of the target population will be addressed. This project opens a new avenue for the application of tDCS as an alternative treatment for a great number of chronic neuropsychiatric disorders in children and adolescents and will allow flexible integration of tDCS in the daily routine of families.