Prestigious grant HORIZON EUROPE - “BEATsep” will tackle long-term consequences of sepsis. / 11.09.2023
The research consortium BEATsep, established by the Cellular and Molecular Immunoregulation (CMI) research team at the International Clinical Research Centre (ICRC), has been awarded a 6.9 million euro HORIZON EUROPE grant. The project entitled “Biomarkers established to stratify sepsis long-term adverse effects to improve patients’ health and quality of life (BEATsep)" aims to define markers of poor recovery of patients after sepsis and septic shock. This will be achieved through the discovery of novel mechanisms and their markers predicting the decline of health-related quality of life after sepsis. Sepsis and septic shock, affecting up to 50 million people worldwide with mortality reaching 20%, leaves large cohorts of vulnerable patients suffering from long-term complications that affect their quality of life.
The BEATsep project will apply an interdisciplinary approach bringing together research and clinical teams working on specific aspects of the development, treatment and prevention of the long-term consequences of sepsis and its impact on patients' quality of life. Comprehensive clinical and research data generated during the project will be integrated using artificial intelligence algorithms into an easy-to-use predictive tool capable of identifying patients at high risk of complications. Furthermore, the consortium plans to design a tertiary prevention strategy to improve the recovery outcomes.
For the next five years, the consortium brings six European countries together in a joint mission to understand and fight the long-term consequences of sepsis.
The consortium is coordinated by ICRC-FNUSA and will consist of leading European institutions including: 1) CIML - Centre d'immunologie de Marseille-Luminy – (Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS/Inserm); 2) The Institute of Innate Immunity, at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn, Germany; 3) Faculty of Medicine at the Comenius University in Slovakia; 4) the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Traumatology, Vienna, Austria; 5) BioVariance GmbH, Germany; 6) Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia; 7) National Institute of Health, Prague, Czechia; 8) University of Galway and 9) APHM - Marseille Hospitals. BEATsep assembles renowned experts in immuno-metabolism and epigenetics, immunophenotyping, diagnostic research and several clinical teams treating adult and pediatric sepsis patients. "It has taken nearly two years of intensive preparation and networking to assemble the consortium. We used the advantage of bringing together teams with whom we have been already collaborating on several other projects." says Dr. Marcela Hortová-Kohoutková from the CMI research group, who co-headed the project's preparation.
In total, 10 partners from renowned European research and clinical institutions and 1 commercial partner in six EU countries will be involved in the BEATsep. The project is an example of an innovative and successful combination of translational and clinical research, the know-how of several international scientists, and the collaboration between hospitals, universities and other scientific institutions.
For more information and updates: @BEATsepsis (X); LinkedIN
Presentation Day of Immunotherapy / 16.05.2023
Ioanna Papatheodorou introduced BEATsep during the conference “Immunity and immunotherapy in current clinical practice.” This conference organized by Czech Immunology Society and Medical Faculty Pilzen, Charles University was a great event to discuss the current state of sepsis therapies and future perspectives, how to target sepsis and its long-lasting consequences. Ioanna Papatheodorou is a new member of ICRC team, greatly experienced in the field of immunometabolism and bioinformatics.
Presentation on yEFIS / 26.04.2023
The BEATsep mission was successfully presented during the conference “Mixer 2023” of Czech Young Immunologist Society by Marcela Hortova-Kohoutkova as one of the Keynote lectures. This conference was held as an occasion during celebrations of the World Day of Immunology.
BEATsep won the prize of the best poster during Colours of Sepsis / 27.01.2023
At the end of January 2023, the 25th edition of the international conference Colours of Sepsis dedicated to sepsis and intensive medicine in adults and children took place in Ostrava, and hosted many eminent international guests. BEATsep consortium was successfully represented at this conference by Dr. Marcela Hortová-Kohoutková and Dr. Jan Frič from Cellular and Molecular Immunoregulation team.
Marcela presented a poster on the topic “Functional changes of monocytes and neutrophils as early markers of septic shock severity”, which won the main poster section of Colours of Sepsis. “Our projects have long focused on the study of sepsis and septic shock, where the immune system plays a crucial role in their development and subsequent course. We are looking at functional changes in cells of innate immunity, especially monocytes and neutrophils. We have been able to show that patients with a poor prognosis have strongly altered functions of innate immunity. We are able to detect these changes already at the time of admission to the intensive care unit. The early analysis could help in the future to select patients who do not respond to conventional treatment and are therefore candidates for personalized treatment.”
