Cancer is one of the leading causes of death nowadays; 1 in every 2 men and 1 in every 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point of their lives. The number of cancer incidences is growing by 2.4% annually, which puts a financial burden on healthcare systems globally. Particle therapy – PT (proton/neutron/positive ion therapy) has been proven to be effective and a safer alternative to other types of external beam radiotherapy as the charged particle dose is delivered in a narrow range and there is minimal damage to surrounding tissue. In 2015, among all patients that were treated for cancer worldwide, 25% were treated using some sort of radiation. However, building PT centres is very costly (>100M €) which has been a crucial factor in the slow adoption of PT facilities. This is likely to change due to introduction to lower cost/compact systems, and, more importantly, growing clinical evidence regarding its efficacy. A critical part of a PT centre is its treatment control system (TCS), the software that synchronizes the operation of all the devices. Currently, PT centre equipment vendors each custom develop their own TCS, which works only with their own equipment, is of limited configurability, closed to adjustments and expensive. Cosylab is a Slovenian company specializing in the field of control systems for particle accelerators with 17 years of experience in the field. We are developing our TCS (C-TCS) as an off-the-shelf product, that is universally usable on all vendors´ (integrators or manufacturers´) equipment. Our solution is easily configurable, available without lead times, and costing 3-5x-less than custom development. Overall, the C-TCS provides better cancer treatment efficacy, lower production and maintenance cost of PT facility, higher throughput of patients (resulting in more people treated). In 5 years after completion of the project (2025) we expect to employ additional 20 people and achieve a ROI of 5.6.

The main purpose of the HEARTS-HOP proposal is to provide to the HEARTS project standardized tools and instruments for dosimetry and user experimentation and lifecycle management throughout and by the end of the HEARTS project. These developments carried out by Cosylab will provide a significant boost to the activities of preparation of the facilities at CERN and GSI so that they can achieve the foreseen TRL6-7 and, at the same time, pave the way for reaching an even higher TRL right after the project. As a first objective, tools that allow users to have control of the beam during experimentation by acting on a single centralized interface will improve the quality of the service provided at each facility and potentilly increase the scientific and insustrial throughput. Finally, the user lifecycle tool will also boost the TRL of the all HEARTS initiative at a global service level.

Metastatic bone cancer is an incurable disease and one of the most complex cancers to treat. Due to the high dose, tumour imaging is currently performed at the beginning and end of standard particle radio-therapy (PRT), making personalised treatment difficult. The main goal of BoneOscopy is to develop a radically new technology to enable informed medical decisions by monitoring bone cancer on a daily basis during PRT. At the heart of BoneOscopy is the ability to detect prompt gamma (PGs) emitted by cancer during PRT and separate them from healthy tissue, unlocking the full potential of spectroscopic analysis without the need for additional dose. The development of a highly specialised detection and collimation system will enable accurate spectroscopic analysis of a very small volume or region within the cancer. As the number of PRT centres grows, we anticipate that within 10 years BoneOscopy will benefit all patients treated with proton and carbon ions. The objectives of BoneOscopy will be achieved by its interdisciplinary consortium, which brings together six partners from five European countries with key expertise in bioengineering and PRT (DKFZ), medical physics and engineering (CSIC), fast electronics for PRT (LIP), Monte Carlo simulations and clinical PRT experience (THM), turnkey software for high performance medical devices (Cosylab) and EU project management, communication and dissemination (accelCH). If achieved, the proposed science-to-technology breakthrough will have a transformative impact on current cancer treatment by providing a safe, personalised and quantitative measure of daily treatment efficacy, thereby contributing to the global fight against cancer. In summary, BoneOscopy will lead to a significant reduction in the health burden in Europe and worldwide, improved quality of life for patients, reduced costs for healthcare systems and improved sustainability of healthcare.

The main purpose of the HEARTS proposal is to provide high-energy (>100 MeV/n) heavy ion accelerator access to space users, in order to mimic the effects of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) at ground level, and thus fulfilling the needs of microelectronics qualification and shielding & radiobiology experiments. These ions will successfully mimic the effects of heavy ions present in the GCR spectrum, and will also ensures penetration levels large enough to enable electronics testing in air, without the need of electronics device preparation (e.g. de-lidding, thinning) and at board and box level. High penetration ion irradiation is essential in order to facilitate the exploitation of high-end microelectronics technology in space, for e.g. onboard artificial intelligence or Big Data processing applications. To this end, the HEARTS proposal features CERN and GSI as accelerator infrastructure partners, who also gather a vast experience and knowledge in radiation effects on electronics, and shielding & radiobiology, respectively. Moreover, HEARTS features also the University of Padova as academic partner, and Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space as industrial participants, all of which have ample experience in the radiation effects domain, and a strong interest in VHE ion testing. The academic and industrial partners will define the requirements, both technical and procedural, for VHE ion user facilities. Such requirements will serve as input to CERN and GSI and will be implemented as upgrade which, once completed, will be scrutinized and validated by the industrial and academic partners, through “real case” experimental campaigns that will in turn serve as input for the development of VHE ion testing recommendations and guidelines. Therefore, in final instance, HEARTS ambitions to create a high quality and sustainable VHE ion irradiation capacity in Europe, accessible to and tailored for space users and applications.

Antiprotons, stored and cooled at low energies in a storage ring or at rest in traps, are highly desirable for the investigation of basic questions on fundamental interactions, the static structure of antiprotonic atoms, CPT tests by high-resolution spectroscopy on antihydrogen, as well as gravity experiments. Antimatter experiments are at the cutting edge of science. They are, however, very difficult to realize and have been limited by the performance of the only existing facility in the world, the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) at CERN. The Extra Low Energy Antiproton ring (ELENA) will be a critical upgrade to this unique facility and commissioned from summer 2016. This will significantly enhance the beam quality and enable new experiments. To fully exploit the discovery potential of this facility and to pave the way for a vibrant long-term physics program with low energy antiprotons, advances are urgently required in numerical tools that can adequately model beam transport, life time and interaction, beam diagnostics tools and detectors that can fully characterize the beam’s properties, as well as in into advanced experimental techniques for improved precision and novel experiments that exploit the enhanced beam quality that ELENA will provide. AVA is a new European training network between universities, research centers and industry that will carry out an interdisciplinary and cross-sector antimatter research and training program for a cohort of 15 Fellows. It targets new scientific and technical developments and aims at boosting the career prospects of all trainees.