In the ULISES project, we aim at developing an immunologic-based treatment strategy where cancer cells are “reprogrammed” to become “visible” to the patient’s own immune system, which will see them as “not belonging to the body” and will attack them, emulating the allogenic response to incompatible transplants. Thus, it will constitute a “natural” treatment, as the patient’s own immune system will be used to attack cancer cells, with no drugs, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, transplants, etc., significantly reducing the treatment time to few weeks and producing minimal or almost null side effects. In addition, this “reprogramming” will lead to an “immunological-memory” avoiding future relapses (vaccine-like effect) through TIL (Tumour Infiltrating Lymphocytes) generated around the tumour microenvironment by the immune system. Porous nanoparticles (NPs) will be used as carriers for delivering a plasmid DNA cargo into the tumour cells in order to produce that “reprogramming”. These NPs will specifically recognize the cancer cells through the CD47 protein and the folate receptors beta and alpha, highly expressed on the surface of the cells. Moreover, two messenger RNAs will be used in order to avoid the side effects caused by targeting CD47 protein (mainly anaemia, neutropenia and thrombocytopenia). Finally, highlight that the ULISES therapeutic strategy will be a “global” treatment, since only with 3 subtypes of NP (one for each chosen alloHLA-A), we will be able to target the entire population for each cancer type. For the implementation and validation of this strategy, we will focus on pancreatic cancer because of its high aggressiveness, lack of effective treatments and little life expectancy, but the developed strategy will also be valid for other cancer varieties with minimal modifications.

Maintaining hygiene standards is the most effective way to combat against the infectious diseases, as they can be transmitted through contacting the surfaces that viruses are available. Hand hygiene is therefore particularly crucial to prevent any possible contract transmission of infectious viruses. Maintaining high hygiene standards is also a necessity to protect the health professionals, allied health workers and support staff from contracting any infectious viruses at their work environment (ibid). In this context, it’s extremely important to follow the hygiene guidelines to protect everyone, especially health staff in care facilities. The main goal of the HYGEIA project is to provide updated, reliable and easily-accessible vocational education and training (VET) on personal and environment hygiene at workplace for healthcare workforce in care settings. We will develop an innovative VET package for health professionals (e.g., doctors, nurses), allied health workers (e.g., physiotherapists, occupational therapists) and support staff (e.g., nurse assistants, ward clerks). All professionals working in a hospital, community and residential care settings must comply with and guarantee high standards of hygiene, for the safety of patients, workers and visitors. This is tremendously an urgent need in contemporary healthcare systems and societies, as emerged from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic around the world.The HYGEIA project will produce three specific outputs:- NEEDS ANALYSIS: a questionnaire will be developed and disseminated in all countries of the consortium amongst healthcare workforce (for collecting their learning needs and understanding the best digital training options and preferences) and managers of healthcare facilities (for understanding current organisational policies and collecting good practices). A final report will be produced with (quantitative and qualitative) data analysis.- EDUCATIONAL MANUAL FOR PERSONAL AND ENVIRONMENT HYGIENE: the manual will target all health, allied health and administrative workforce employed in different care settings. It will include recommendations for daily working life on how to comply with common and context-specific rules of personal and environment hygiene. Contents will be differentiated according to type of professions (health, allied health, and support personnel).- E-LEARNING MULTIMEDIA COURSE: a mobile application will enable healthcare workers to learn systematically about hygiene, its importance and consequences, how to maintain it together with other people the disease, good practices and tips for addressing most common problems in each care setting (hospital, community and residential care). It will include a serious game for learning by a gamification approach.The HYGEIA project will play a crucial role in improving awareness, attitudes, practices and access to training for all healthcare workers, even those with non-clinical backgrounds who still work in the same environment and experience a huge interaction with other people.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) has recently proven itself as a prophylactic modality that can be rapidly developed and employed with high efficacy and low toxicity. Compared to DNA-based gene therapy, mRNA has significant advantages including higher intrinsic safety (non-integrating), lower cost of development, and less stringent regulatory requirements for clinical approval. In the NANEMIAR project, we take advantage of these benefits to kill 2 birds with 1 stone: first, we develop a first-of-its-kind nanomedicine for congenital anemia, a group of rare, inherited blood disorders characterized by ineffective red blood cell production. Our proposed bone marrow-targeted mRNA-based therapy contributes to the first Horizon Europe strategic plan (2021-2024) for new and advanced therapies for non-communicable diseases and is expected to be a vast improvement over current treatment options in terms of efficacy and safety. Second, we provide critical knowledge on targeted non-viral polynucleotide delivery, with a platform that can be exploited for next-generation cell and gene therapy in a broader context. To achieve this, our consortium combines the unique cell-targeting and mRNA knowledge from the Dutch Biotech Mercurna with two excellent research partners (from Spain and France) who have demonstrated expertise in the field of anemia. By focusing on the well-recognized rare disease model, beta-thalassemia, and combining an established mouse model, patient material, and previous drug development experience we build a convincing case to treat congenital anemia.