More than 3.5 million new people are diagnosed with heart failure every year in Europe, with a long-term prognosis of 50% mortality within four years. There is urgent need for more innovative, regenerative therapies with the potential to change the course of the condition.
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe. Prevention relies on measuring traditional risk factors such as age, gender, hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and smoking. However, many individuals, apparently at low-risk, still develop CVD. Improving predictions beyond the traditional risk factors is the challenge undertaken by Prof. Olle Melander.
Antibiotics are amongst the most crucial discoveries in modern medicine. However, the surge in microbial resistance to these, now common, drugs is a challenge that medical researchers work hard to tackle. Prof. Susanne Häußler from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research believes early diagnostic tools could shift the paradigm of how we battle this problem.
Parents may threat at the idea of their children playing in fields and sheds, but research shows that those who grew up in farms, where this is common occurrence, are less likely to suffer from allergies and asthma. Prof. Erika von Mutius leads a team of researchers, that uses this knowledge to investigate how we could treat such conditions more effectively.
Thousands of new cases of head-and-neck cancer - which includes cancer of the larynx, throat, mouth, nose and salivary glands - are diagnosed every year in Europe. Despite improvements in diagnostic and therapeutic tools, these malignant tumours still show high resistance to current treatments. Dr Daniela Thorwarth is working on tailored therapies for individual patients.
An ERC-funded project is conducting groundbreaking research into a rare form of leukaemia, proving the effectiveness in patients of non-chemotherapy-based treatments that target the genetic cause of the disease. The Hairy Cell Leukemia project, launched by the Institute of Hematology at the University of Perugia in Italy with funding from the European Research Council, is one of the world’s foremost initiatives to develop a targeted therapy for hairy cell leukaemia (HCL), a rare form of blood cancer.
How close are we to developing a successful and comprehensive vaccine for cancer? ERC grantee Prof. Yvette van Kooyk thinks that a combination of glycobiology and immunology will lead us closer than ever before. Thanks to her ground-breaking multidisciplinary team and her new approach based on sugar receptors, she has developed a nanovaccine that promises to represent the future for cancer treatment.
Malaria has always been the centre of attention for Dr Ali Salanti’s, a molecular parasitologist and an ERC grantee. With his studies, he hoped to bring new insight into pregnancy-associated malaria, to save the lives of women and their babies in areas affected by the disease. Now, Dr Salanti’s research has shifted to battling against another deadly disease: cancer. This comes after an unexpected discovery yielded ground-breaking results for the diagnosis and treatment of this illness. This is the kind of curiosity-driven research that can lead to ground-breaking serendipitous outcomes.
