The increasing elderly population poses a dual challenge to the viability of both global health and our current welfare systems. One of the pivotal aspects of aging involves the accumulation of damaged cells, known as senescent cells, in organs. While these cells play a role in coordinating tissue repair whenever damage occurs, their aberrant accumulation disturbs normal tissue function, resulting in an unbearable burden that ultimately leads to aging. Understanding how these cells accumulate within the organism, a yet unresolved question, would offer invaluable insights into the aging process. We have recently reported that damaged cells rely on Integrins, a family of membrane proteins, to implement senescence over cell death, leading to their accumulation within injured tissues. Remarkably, Integrins are known as the major cellular receptors binding to the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM). Considering these precedents, we aim to take a step further and investigate whether the composition and status of the ECM can influence the buildup of senescent cells by impacting the choice between senescence and cell death upon injury, a possibility not explored before. Here, we aim to assess whether certain ECM proteins might act as pro-senescence factors by desensitizing damaged cells to death, favoring survival and aberrant senescence instead. We will thoroughly characterize multiple cell culture and mouse models of senescence implementation following damage, aiming to unveil the mechanisms controlling this phenomenon. Leveraging these findings, we will modulate the occurrence of cell senescence through ECM reengineering in mice, seeking to establish a revolutionary approach to address aging and tissue fibrosis. In sum, by uncovering unsuspected links between the ECM status and cell senescence implementation, ChECMate senescence would signify a paradigm change that would enable an unprecedented strategy in targeting cellular senescence in detrimental scenarios.

This proposal for a European Cancer Patient Digital Centre (ECPDC) Information Portal, EU-CIP, addresses the information needs of cancer patients, survivors, relatives, and caregivers. EU-CIP aims to create a patient-centric cancer information portal that improves health literacy, empowers patients, and reduces inequalities in access to cancer care information across Europe. The EU-CIP primary goal is to improve quality of life and enhance cancer patient care by improving access to general and personalized knowledge, delivering comprehensive information on cancer prevention, early detection, diagnosis, and treatment options including risks, side effects and late effects as well as information on rehabilitation and management of recurrence and palliative care. EU-CIP will prioritise high-incidence cancers, those with poor prognosis, and paediatric cancers. A Common Library of Contents available to all Member States will be created and EU-CIP nodes will be deployed in 10 Member States. The Library of Contents will use information from evidence-based sources such as the Knowledge Centre on Cancer and the European Cancer Information Service, existing Cancer Information Portals, and European guidelines. A governance framework for scalable content creation and review processes supported by AI tooling will be established. The consortium partners, including several patient organisations, will ensure that the patients’ view is reflected in the content review and technology usability aspects. The EU-CIP Central and local nodes will be built in a modular fashion to allow integration with existing electronic health infrastructures. To align with the EU Cancer Mission goal to improve lives through prevention, EU-CIP will raise awareness about the Mission and Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. Alignment with the Mission’s overall plans will be realized through collaboration with the EU funded projects of the related 01-01/01-02 calls.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health challenge with an estimated 67% increase in global deaths attributable to AMR by 2050. The European Partnership One Health AMR (EUP OHAMR) is aiming to reduce the burden of AMR with an integrated One Health (OH) approach, recognising that human, animal and plant health are interdependent and interlinked with the environment. The partnership will boost AMR research and innovation (R&I) addressing the current knowledge gaps with the aim to improve surveillance of resistant pathogens and provide better diagnostics and more effective treatments of drug-resistant infections. It will support implementation research on prevention measures reducing the use of antimicrobials and spread of AMR and launch an ambitious work programme of joint activities to coordinate R&I investments, facilitate the use and re-use of R&I data, strengthen AMR R&I capacities and facilitate both knowledge translation and uptake of research results and innovations by industry, society, and policy makers. The EUP OHAMR builds on the long-standing collaboration of the partners from the Joint Programme Initiative on AMR (JPIAMR) but with a bigger ambition and a broader scope. The partnership consists of 53 partners from 30 countries from the European Union (EU) and beyond. With active engagement of key stakeholders across the AMR landscape, the partnership will strengthen European and global synergies through alignment of research priorities, policies, and investments. Furthermore, EUP OHAMR will support multisectoral and multidisciplinary collaborations to break the existing silos in AMR research. It will result in increased knowledge and solutions and provide an evidence base for uptake into policy and practice to prevent and tackle AMR. Thus, the EUP OHAMR will deliver towards to the priorities set in the European One Health Action plan against AMR, thereby strengthening the European Research and Innovation Area ecosystem and contribute to making the EU a best-practice region on AMR.