The overarching goal of REALISTIC is to develop a Centre of Excellence in aerosol remote sensing technology and science in the Indian Ocean, through the creation of a Chair, with La Réunion, a European Outermost region, as a strategic pivot point of the European Research Area. REALISTIC aims at attracting and maintaining a high-profile researcher (ERA Chair holder) to lead a high profile supporting team with excellent research and technical capabilities in the aerosol remote sensing domain. In particular, specific applications and research endeavours will be conducted in the area of quantifying the impact of wildfire and volcanic emissions on the tropical atmosphere composition and on the Earth-Atmosphere radiative balance. REALISTIC is designed to catalyse and maximise the impact of the ERA Chair in order to raise the research, technical and innovation excellence of the Laboratory of Atmosphere and Cyclones (LACy), the Observatory of Atmospheric Physics of La Réunion (OPAR), the Observatory of the Universe Sciences of La Réunion (OSU-R), and the University of La Réunion (UR) to a level that makes them unique and essential references in the local R&I ecosystem, at the Indian Ocean-level as well as to the overall international community, and thus filling the R&I gap on atmospheric systems. REALISTIC will contribute to better integrate UR within the European Research Area, and better align with European standards and priorities.

The overall concept of INTERCEPT-T2D is to establish whether an inflammatory-mediated profile contributes to the onset of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) complications, thus enabling the identification of patients most at risk of complications and the design of personalize prevention measures. INTERCEPT-T2D focuses on understanding whether an inflammatory mediated profile of T2D contributes to early onset of complications. The combination of state-of-the-art genomics and cell-biology technologies with targeted clinical interventions should lead to potent patients’ stratification. It should allow the identification and prognosis of a novel class or subclass of patients characterized by an “Inflammatory-mediated T2D” endotype. Bringing in a partner such as University de la Réunion (UR) will significantly enhance the scope and impact of INTERCEPT-T2D by adding genetic, environmental, and cultural diversity to the study. It will reenforce the INTERCEPT-T2D objective in developing more widely applicable stratified diabetic medicine. The UR's contribution lies in the fact of providing access to 2 unique cohorts of the early phases of transition from a healthy situation to pre-diabetic and then diabetic. These cohorts are detrimental to validate our concept that inflammatory mechanisms govern T2D disease transition. Indeed, the inclusion of this new partner will enable the consortium to broaden the spectrum of inflammatory biomarkers researched at plasma level. The expertise provided by the widening partner will also enable the consortium to search for lipoprotein and lipid markers using mass spectrometry and NMR approaches. Lipid markers have a direct effect on NLRP3, the therapeutic target of the INTERCEPT-T2D project. In addition, many inflammatory mediators are of lipid origin and could contribute to the definition of the diabetic inflammatory score. These lipid biomarkers will be analysed not only in La Réunion's cohorts, but also in the relevant INTERCEPT-T2D Cohorts.