Sustainability is a major concern worldwide, resulting in the launch of Bioeconomy as a global strategy with trillions of euros invested in waste valorisation policies. Agricultural waste is rich in terpenes, a class of organic molecules that can be used as chemical feedstocks for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, contributing to a circular bioeconomy scheme through reduce, reuse and recycle. Waste2Drug will contribute to the agriwaste valorisation in two ways; first, it will focus on the valorisation of the terpene-derived p-isopropyltoluene (commonly known as p-cymene), through its pharmaceutical development as a potent anticancer agent, by identifying its biological target and optimizing its anticancer activity. In parallel, Waste2Drug will contribute to the optimization of the p-cymene access from terpene-rich biomass, through theoretical investigation of the terpene deoxydehydration reaction that will aid the development of a more efficient catalytic procedure. The theoretical insights provided by the researcher will be used by synthetic chemists first on model molecules and then on actual agriwaste. The fellowship will be carried out at NovaMechanics Ltd (NvM), under the supervision of Dr Andreas Afantitis (AA), while a secondment will take place in the University of Burgos (UBU), under the supervision of Prof. Roberto Sanz Diez (RSD). The researcher, Dr Sofia Kiriakidi, will lead the computational line of the project, while gaining valuable experience in terms of leadership and project management, by collaborating with experimental scientists and coordinating this multidisciplinary approach. Waste2Drug connects theory to experiment, academia to industry and promotes the EU Bioeconomy strategy by both developing anticancer agents based on p-cymene and by facilitating its access from biomass terpenes, converting agricultural waste to novel drug molecules.

The prevalence of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia, continues to rise, partly due to increasing life expectancy. The diagnosis of these disorders remains a significant challenge due to overlapping symptoms, delayed recognition of early symptoms often mistaken for normal aging, and variability in symptom presentation across patients. METNEDIA will tackle these challenges by proposing a new framework for the development of a diagnostic tool. METNEDIA will utilize metabolomic analysis and artificial intelligence to develop a diagnostic tool for the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. A discovery phase will be initially performed using untargeted metabolomic approaches to identify most relevant biomarkers. The project will then develop of a diagnostic kit based on mass spectrometry and artificial intelligence for the diagnosis of widely diffuse neurodegenerative diseases. A multicenter validation of the kit will be also performed. Neurotoxic evaluation of molecules identified as relevant for each disease will be evaluated in vitro. Finally, bioinformatic and machine learning will be used to gaining insight on the biology of neurodegenerative disorders using in vitro and in vivo data.

Recent evidence of increasing accumulation of micro- and nanoplastics (MnP) in soils and groundwater raise severe concerns by agricultural and water industries, food manufacturers, regulators, environmental interest groups and citizens. Private and public sectors require detailed understanding of environmental and public health risks posed by MnP in soils and groundwater. The PlasticUnderground Doctoral Network creates supra-disciplinary intersectoral capacity for analysing the fate, transport and impacts of MnP in soils and groundwater to develop solutions for reducing their environmental and public health risks, supporting the EC’s circular plastic economy strategy. The central aim of the PlasticUnderground Doctoral Network is to deliver international scientific excellence through a holistic supra-disciplinary and inter-sectoral research and training network on solutions to the emerging crisis of MnP pollution in subsurface ecosystems in soils and groundwater, integrating knowledge across traditional discipline boundaries to benefit the public and private sectors. The supra-disciplinary research programme includes unique training opportunities for a cohort of 10 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) (plus one individually funded through ETHZ [CH] and three funded through UoB, RU and Polymateria [UKRI] as Associated Partners) in environmental and social science, ecotoxicology, soil science and aquatic ecology, analytical chemistry, agronomy, data science and numerical modelling as well as responsible innovation, method standardization for use in regulatory decision making and risk assessment. The integrated training programme will prepare DCs with skill sets that are urgently required in agricultural, water, chemical, and manufacturing industries, environmental and regulatory agencies, academia, and the public sector and includes training provision by key stakeholders that will directly benefit from the training in this network.

NanoMaterials safety is of great societal concern and raises many questions for the general public, governments, industry, scientists and regulators. Identifying and controlling the hazards associated with NMs is required to ensure the safety in parallel to exploiting the technological benefits. NANOGENTOOLS answers this challenge by creating a collaborative excellence-based knowledge exchange network that will: i) push forward knowledge via method development and pre-validation, ii) train scientists in new methodologies to assess long term nanosafety, and iii) support their inclusion in standardization and EU regulations. NANOGENTOOLS combines toxicogenomics, proteomics, biophysics, molecular modeling, chemistry, bio/chemoinformatics to develop fast in vitro high throughput (HTS) assays, with molecular based computational models for nanotoxicity. Its objectives are to: · Provide solutions for faster, more reliable assessment of NM toxicity and propose HTS and omics tools for predicting toxicological properties of NMs. · Develop new bioinformatics methodologies for analyzing -omics data and create an open database in collaboration with the EU Nanosafety Cluster. · Conduct research and training on biophysical techniques and mathematical models for accurate and fast nanotoxicity prediction. · Build/improve the safe by design concept, demonstrated using carbon-NMs and nanosensors. · Place our new knowledge in the context of regulations and EU roadmaps. NANOGENTOOLS brings together cutting edge research, innovative knowledge-transfer and co-development, and cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary secondments linking EU academic institutes/networks with industry and policy makers across 8 countries. Expected impacts include pre-validated tools for efficient cost-effective nanosafety assessment applicable to SMEs for incorporation into regulatory frameworks, and translation of knowledge via development of a CNT-based nanosensor based on safe-by-design principles.

Metastatic melanoma is a hard-to-treat disease and it remains as one of the most worrisome cancer. There is an urgent need to improve the current therapies (chemotherapy, radiotherapy) that have a limited efficacy. A single therapy is not efficient to tackle metastatic melanoma and a combination of therapies is thus emerging as a necessity to efficiently eradicate all cancer cells. Recently, the development of immunotherapies has shown promises, in particular chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells. Nevertheless, the physical barriers represented by cellular and non-cellular components of the tumor microenvironment combined to the abnormal tumor vasculature and high interstitial fluid pressure, hamper an efficient tumour infiltration of CAR-T cells. In this context, thanks to a network of 18 partners (including 10 non-academic partners), MELOMANES aims to train doctoral researchers for the development of a combined therapy exploiting the properties of magnetic nanoparticles to induce damage on the tumor microenvironment by magnetic and optic hyperthermia in order to facilitate the infiltration of CAR-T cells. This therapeutic approach combining hyperthermia and immunotherapy is versatile, as it could be also applied to other types of solid tumors. Research and transferable training of the doctoral researchers will be performed in a highly interdisciplinary, intersectoral, and international environment. In addition to acquiring skills related to the research project, they will be trained also in open science, communication and dissemination, responsible research and innovation, circular economy, ethics, data management, entrepreneurship, marketing, intellectual property, and gender dimension in research. Their competences will be validated through certification and qualification examination, allowing a new generation of highly skilled doctoral researchers to emerge with a high-level training in particular in the multidisciplinary field of nanomedicine.