Background: EU countries face large health challenges to combat chronic diseases. Recently, systems medicine has emerged as a promising discipline to accelerate the translation of basic research into applications for improved diagnostics and personalized treatment. Its power arises from the integration of laboratory and computational approaches crossing research disciplines and sectors to solve clinical questions. COSMIC delivers the next generation of leading, entrepreneurial, and innovative systems medicine professionals having expertise, skills, and experience to successfully combat complex human disorders. These professional will find excellent career opportunities. COSMIC focuses on B-cell neoplasia and rheumatoid arthritis, prototypical diseases originating from abnormal functioning of immune cells, often resulting in similar antigen specificities. COSMIC enables Early Stage Researchers to play a leading role in this exciting field. Approach: COSMIC develops and integrate experimental and computational approaches and establish a unique cross-fertilization between oncology and auto-immunity. In addition to transferable skills, the training program focuses on establishing a double expertise in laboratory and computational to address clinical questions. It involves a wide-range of stakeholders: (pre)clinical departments, companies, patient groups, students, and the general public. COSMIC will establish a link with the leading European EASyM and ISBE initiatives, and aims to harmonize systems medicine training throughout Europe by connecting to other EU (Marie Curie systems medicine) training initiatives. Impact: COSMIC (i) significantly improves ESR career perspectives (ii) leads to new public-private collaborations increasing competitiveness for companies; (iii) contributes to future oncology and immunology medical care; (iv) contributes to the EU systems medicine best practices.

Emerging resistance towards antimicrobials marks this decade and the lack of therapy options especially against gram-negative pathogens underscores the need for optimization of current diagnostics, therapies and prevention of the spread of these organisms. In this proposal the PIs medical microbiology background and previous ERC-funded work on molecular resistance markers is exploited towards the development of a diagnostic assay for resistance profiling and genotyping. The implementation of the molecular StG-knowledge based RAPID (Rapid Antimicrobial susceptibility testing and Phylogenetic Identification) Assay could change the current paradigm of culture-based microbiological diagnostics and facilitate surveillance of multi-drug resistance. The overall objective is to initiate steps of pre-commercialization. Through the simultaneous pursuit of exploratory and exploitative innovation activities RAPID will be developed as a diagnostic tool for clinical microbiological laboratories. By applying our molecular assay in phase II diagnostic trials on a world-wide collection of multi-drug resistant pathogens, measures of diagnostic accuracy will be obtained. In addition to the assessment and critical appraisal of the diagnostic test, I will partner with the technology transfer company Ascenion, and apply for the CE label for RAPID. The CE mark will open the door for further commercialization opportunities such as licensing or offering the RAPID Assay as a service. In addition, market research, protection of intellectual property and contacts with end users and pharmaceutical industry for partnering activities will be central to the project. The implementation of RAPID as a tailored and cost-effective diagnostic tool in clinical microbiology laboratories holds promise to provide critical information for decision-making with respect to antibiotic use and for improvement of disease surveillance in multi-drug resistant nosocomial infections, and thus is of high priority.

TRANSVAC2 is the follow-up project to its successful predecessor project TRANSVAC, the European Network of Vaccine Research and Development funded under FP7. The TRANSVAC2 consortium comprises a comprehensive collection of leading European institutions that propose to further advance with the previous initiative towards the establishment of a fully operational and sustainable European vaccine R&D infrastructure. TRANSVAC2 will support innovation for both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine development based on a disease-overarching and one-health approach, thereby optimising the knowledge and expertise gained during the development of both human and animal vaccines. This will be achieved by bridging the translational gap in biomedical research, and by supporting cooperation between public vaccine R&D institutions of excellence, related initiatives and networks in Europe, and industrial partners. TRANSVAC2 will complement and integrate with existing European research infrastructures in both the public and private sectors. TRANSVAC2 will function as leverage and innovation catalyst between all stakeholders involved in vaccine R&D in Europe and -by providing integrated and overarching vaccine R&D services- will contribute to the development of effective products to address European and global health challenges, to controlling the burden and spread of infectious diseases, and reinforce the economic assets represented by vaccine developers in Europe. The impact of TRANSVAC2 will be maximised by two external advisory bodies. An independent Scientific & Ethics Advisory Committee will provide recommendations surrounding scientific-technical and ethical issues, whereas the coordination of TRANSVAC2 with other related initiatives and the further promotion of the long-term stability of a European vaccine R&D infrastructure will be supported by a Board of Stakeholders comprising representatives of policy and decision makers, industry associations and European infrastructures.

ENLIGHT-TEN+ is a European Network Linking Informatics and Genomics of Helper T cells in Tissues: A crucial missing link in our current research environment is the lack of qualified individuals who possess the immunology skills to recognise and define important scientific questions amenable to -omics approaches, and also the bioinformatic expertise to interrogate and interpret the resulting Big Data appropriately. Thus, our mission is to provide cross-disciplinary training for a new generation of enthusiastic researchers who have in-depth understanding of T cell immunology and are also capable to handle large datasets. Our network of 15 beneficiaries from 10 European countries combines expertise on T cell biology with state-of-the-art technologies generating Big Data, cutting-edge bioinformatic tools including artificial intelligence, preclinical models and samples from patient cohorts. ENLIGHT-TEN+ will identify microenvironmental factors shaping the functional properties of tissue-resident T cells, which offer important therapeutic potential in various human autoimmune diseases, making them a key target for pharmaceutical companies. 15 early-stage researchers (ESRs) will be empowered to push our knowledge of tissue-resident T cells beyond the state-of-the-art which will enable the identification of novel biomarkers and support the development of advanced therapeutic concepts. The generation of Big Data is an emerging and challenging field, and there is high demand in both the academic and industrial sector for researchers to be able to analyse, integrate and exploit this rich source of information. ENLIGHT-TEN+ will combine individual strengths of innovative laboratories and enterprises from complementary disciplines to provide unique interdisciplinary training as an ideal stepping-stone for the ESRs to enter and strengthen Europe’s academia as well as pharmaceutical and bioinformatics companies, thereby placing them at the forefront of this emerging field.