The public-private partnership, READI, seeks to help clinical studies (CS) to finally serve the complete general population, and therefore more patients. To date CS have struggled to recruit and retain participants from diverse backgrounds and communities, such as marginalized or disadvantaged groups (e.g., sexual, gender, age, cultural, and socioeconomic cohorts). The resulting knowledge gaps entrench or increase health disparities. The READI consortium strives to tackle these challenges by fostering a more cohesive and integrated CS ecosystem for underserved (US) and underrepresented (UR) communities. It will actively connect all key stakeholders who can facilitate access to a wide range of patient populations. It will provide these stakeholders with the necessary tools, training programs, and approaches essential for the recruitment and retention of US/UR patients in CS. In addition, it will design, build and implement a digital platform which is patient-centred, sustainable, open and innovative. This will foster improved access to CS information and READI tools, while also supporting patient connections with the created communities. Finally, at least 4 CS will be used for testing the effectiveness of the developed tools and approaches. READI has a three-fold objective: to help US/UR communities overcome CS participation barriers (e.g., lack of information/awareness, mistrust, poor communication, geographic limitations, prejudice), which in turn will improve research of many diseases and conditions, preventative care and treatment effectiveness in different demographic groups, and better serve society. READI’s success will draw from its interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder, consortium composition of 73 organizations from 18 countries, with key expertise in drug development and CS (design and operations), engagement strategies for US/UR populations, digital platform development, training and capability building initiatives, effective communication and dissemination, long-term sustainability, ethics and regulatory affairs.

Medicinal chemistry is a fast-evolving discipline. Since the early 2000s is shifting its interest from a traditional small molecule's “flat” domain to a 3D molecular space that can address the ongoing demand for therapeutic solution targeting unmet clinical diseases. In this context, during the last years new classes of compounds are being used as therapeutic agents; among them, DNA- and RNA-based therapeutics agents are gaining a prominent role in drug process development. Natural nucleosides, the fundamental building blocks of these therapeutic agents, are numerically limited and show poor biological stability properties. To overcome these limitations and to have access to a DNA/RNA based drug with an improved profile, the synthesis of nucleosides analogues is a cornerstone strategy pursued by medicinal chemistry. Although several sites of modifications of the natural occurring nucleosides can be identified, the most widespread decorations involve the ribose moiety in C1, C2 and C3. Moreover, the reported methodologies often require many synthetic steps and make these approaches poorly sustainable. The aim of the eGreenchem project is to allow the access to an unprecedent class of nucleosides analogues by C-H functionalization of the C-5 position of the ribose moiety. We plan to perform such transformation via the electrochemical-mediated radical generation of a C5 carbon centered radical and its subsequent reaction with various radical acceptors. Organic electrochemistry can facilitate the selective formation of the radical, instead of others regioisomers, and thus the specific functionalization of complex scaffolds. This transformation would represent a state-of-the-art advancement in the decoration of sp3-based scaffold, another popular trend in medicinal chemistry. The outcome of this project will further result in the synthesis of a nucleosides analogues library targeting a new molecular space for the development of novel drug candidates.