The European Consortium for Communicating Gene and Cell Therapy Information (EuroGCT) unites 49 partner organisations and institutions across Europe, including the major European advanced therapies learned societies, with the common goal of providing reliable and accessible information related to cell and gene therapy development to European stakeholders. EuroGCT has two major objectives: • To provide patients, people affected by conditions, healthcare professionals and citizens with accurate scientific, legal, ethical and societal information and with engagement opportunities, and thus to support better informed decision-making related to cell and gene-based therapies. • To facilitate better decision-making at key points in development of new therapies and thus enable improved product development, by providing the research community and regulatory and healthcare authorities with an information source on the practical steps needed for cell and gene therapy development. To achieve our aims, EuroGCT will adopt a highly structured system for coordinated management of information related to cell and gene therapy development and, from this, will implement an ambitious programme of online and direct stakeholder information provision and engagement. All outputs will be delivered in 7 European languages, to ensure broad accessibility, and will be rigorously evaluated against measurable objectives throughout the project duration. The proposed consortium comprises leading cell and gene therapy-related organisations and basic and clinical research labs across Europe, including new member states; together with experts in product development, ethical, legal and societal issues, and in evaluating clinical outcomes; patient representatives; and science communicators. It thus is uniquely placed to develop a world-leading cell and gene therapy information resource and to meet the challenge outlined in Topic SC1-HCO-19-2020.

Led by the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation (SCFDI) based at Queen Margaret University, the PALM-ALT project aims to provide a game-changing solution to the environmental issues associated with the food industry's dependency on the over-cultivation of palm. The project is led by Julien Lonchamp (lecturer in food science at QMU) and Catriona Liddle (new product development manager at the SCFDI) and is carried out in collaboration with industry partners AAK, Nairn's and Greggs. Due to its unique lipid composition allowing it to be solid at room temperature and its low production costs, palm oil has become the main functional fat ingredient across the food industry, including the bakery sector in which it is used for its texturising, shortening, foam stabilisation and mouthfeel properties. However, due to the devastating environmental impact of palm over-cultivation on deforestation and climate change, the industry is looking for sustainable alternatives. Alongside efforts to develop more sustainable palm cultivation practises, current palm fat replacement strategies have led to a number of commercial products. However their impact and expansion are limited due to health-related concerns including high saturated fat content and the presence of trans fatty acids. The PALM-ALT solution is based on a novel combination of sustainable ingredients (linseed processing co-product and beta-glucan), which when processed in specific conditions is able to mimic palm fat functionality, allowing to replace it with healthier rapeseed oil (low in saturated fat and high in polyunsaturated fat). In 2020 the team completed a phase 1 project which demonstrated the technical feasibility of the approach. This current phase 2 project aims to design prototypes of the novel palm fat replacer and the novel palm-free bakery applications (pastry, cake, biscuit and oatcake) at pilot scale and to test them at manufacturing scale at the industry partners with a view to commercialising the products at the end of the project. The PALM-ALT proposal aims to significantly contribute to a more sustainable food industry by: * reducing its dependency on the over-cultivation and importations of palm fat via the development of healthier palm-free products with potential to capture significant segments of the functional ingredient and bakery markets * contributing to the recovery of the industry partners from the COVID-19 pandemic via the added market advantage of these healthier new products * developing a linseed processing co-product currently used as animal feed (defatted linseed meal from oil extraction) into a high-value ingredient

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.