
Here we, a group of long-standing collaborators in innovative drug repurposing, propose to build REPO4EU, a comprehensive European/global platform for validated precision drug repurposing open to stakeholders for information, multimedia training, matchmaking and cooperation. Drug repurposing reduces the time and costs of drug development but is often serendipitous and less effective than classical drug discovery. Both, discovery and repurposing, suffer from the same knowledge gap that diseases are mechanistically not understood and treated symptomatically in an imprecise manner. Our team of world-leading scientists overcome this by breakthroughs in advanced bioinformatics and artificial intelligence (AI) on real-world big data to redefine diseases in a mechanism-based manner. Patients are still identified by symptom, but stratified according to causal mechanism, the endotype. Trials are small, precise, innovatively designed, prioritising, in coordination with regulators, payers and investors, patient-defined outcomes with high safety and operational excellence. This revolutionary new era of medicine will allow unprecedented efficacy and cost-effectiveness. The promiscuity of small molecules and recently expanded knowledge of protein structures are exploited by cheminformatics and deep learning to repurpose drugs beyond their original target. At any level of the development chain, even for classic projects, REPO4EU provides expertise and matchmaking for freedom-to-operate, intellectual property, reformulation and value-creation, specialised in drug repurposing. Within 5 years, REPO4EU will establish a first-in-class coherent and innovative web-based platform for safe and efficient drug repurposing for all types of high unmet medical need indications to all European researchers and SMEs with a unique Open Science concept, ensuring global medical impact. Finally, within a 2-year interphase, REPO4EU will be converted into a sustainable European infrastructure.
Around 50% of the global population lives in metropolitan areas, and this is expected to grow to 75% by 2050. Mobility within these areas is complex as it involves multiple modalities of transport, multiple managing authorities, as well as several millions of citizens. The cost of inefficiency in transport and mobility are enormous. For example, inefficiency costs the UK economy €5.8 billion each year. €583 million is wasted on fuel (e.g. traffic congestion) alone each year, which attributes to increased urban pollution and CO2. Hold-ups to business or freight vehicles amounts to €1.5bn annually. Mobility generates huge amounts of data thought thousands of sensors, city cameras, and connected cars, as well as millions of citizens connected through their mobile devices. If properly managed, this data can be used to understand, optimise and manage mobility and make it more efficient, sustainable and resilient. SETA will address this challenge, creating a technology and methodology able to use this wealth of data to change the way mobility is organised, monitored and planned in large metropolitan areas. The solution will be able to collect, process, link and fuse high-volume, high-velocity, multi-dimensional, heterogeneous, cross-media, cross-sectorial data and to use it to model mobility with a precision, granularity and dynamicity that is impossible with today’s technologies. Such models will be the basis of pervasive services to citizens and business, as well as decision makers to support safe, sustainable, effective, efficient and resilient mobility. The project has the potential to impact the everyday lives of millions of people, their health and the environment with enormous financial and social impact. SETA’s solution will be evaluated rigorously by citizens, business and decision makers in 3 cities across Europe. The proposal includes a commercialisation plan and describes the economy of managing the SETA ecosystem in a metropolitan area.
PRIME introduces the novel concept of insulin signalling as a key mechanism underlying the multimorbidity of major mental and somatic illnesses. It is well known that aberrant insulin signalling causes high health and socioeconomic burden through its role in diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. We posit that the impact of ‘insulinopathies’ is still largely underestimated, since insulin multimorbidity also extends to the brain, where altered insulin signalling appears to be implicated in dementias such as Alzheimer disease and – based on our pilot work - in mental illnesses characterized by compulsivity, especially obsessive compulsive disorder and autism. We therefore further posit that insulin multimorbidity evolves throughout life, necessitating a lifespan approach. PRIME brings together a multidisciplinary team to (1) extend our understanding of insulin multimorbidity across the lifespan, (2) understand the causal mechanisms linking somatic and mental insulin-related illnesses, (3) develop tools for early diagnosis, improved clinical care, and prevention of insulin-related lifespan multimorbidity. We will leverage the world’s largest registry, clinical cohort, and population data sets to identify and validate new insulinopathies. Through an interdisciplinary battery of innovative approaches, we will clarify the causal mechanisms linking peripheral and central insulin signalling to body-brain comorbidity, integrating across animal models and studies in humans from molecule to cell, brain, cognition, and behaviour. Our prior evidence enables PRIME to bring the new knowledge to society, based on e.g. repurposing medication and lifestyle interventions (diet/exercise monitored by mHealth assessment), identifying and validating novel drug targets, developing and testing candidate biomarkers, and by improving existing medical guidelines and policy. Furthermore, educational approaches to inform clinicians, patients, and general public will be developed.
iNavigate, a Marie-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) consortium, brings together scientists and engineers in academic, private and NGO enterprises. Its goal is to promote international and intersectoral cooperation for the next generation, brain-inspired technologies to facilitate the development of intelligent navigation and autonomous mobility solutions. The consortium exploits the complementary competencies of its members while creating synergy through research, innovation, staff exchange and transfer of knowledge. It actively promotes networking, knowledge utilization and dissemination through summer schools, workshops, conferences, and facilitates new skill acquisition and career development in research, innovation and commercialization.