Health and disease are regulated, to a large extent, by our immune system. The immune system not only protects the body from infectious disease, but is involved in a number of conditions of increasing incidence and morbidity, such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and allergies. In cancer, the immune system can be both cause and cure; it contributes to chronic inflammation that promotes tumour development, but it can also provide the ultimate weapon against metastatic disease. Thus, the development of ways to harness, direct or restrain immune responses has great potential for enhancing human health. Understanding the mechanisms that control the abundance of different lymphocyte (a type of white blood cell) subsets is key to therapeutically targeting immune responses. Ultimately, this understanding must be sought in quantitative terms, explaining how the rates of cell proliferation, differentiation, survival and death are determined by molecular mechanisms and cellular interactions. Current immunological research is beginning to combine experimental approaches with mathematical analysis to quantitate immune dynamics. A severe obstacle to more rapid progress in this area is the lack of appropriately trained scientists. In this ETN, European scientists, with a rich track record in collaborative research and training, have come together to deliver a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary and intersectoral research training programme for 15 early stage researchers (ESRs) in Quantitative T cell Immunology and Immunotherapy (QuanTII).

MMbio will bridge the classically separate disciplines of Chemistry and Biology by assembling leading experts from academia and non-academic partners (industry, technology transfer & science communication) to bring about systems designed to interfere therapeutically with gene expression in living cells. Expertise in nucleic acid synthesis, its molecular recognition and chemical reactivity is combined with drug delivery, cellular biology and experimental medicine. This project represents a concerted effort to make use of a basic and quantitative understanding of chemical interactions to develop and deliver oligonucleotide molecules of utility for therapy. Our chemical biology approach to this field is ambitious in its breadth and represents a unqiues opportunity to educate young scientists across sectorial and disciplinary barriers. Training will naturally encompass a wide range of skills, requiring a joint effort of chemists and biologists to introduce young researchers in a structured way to and array of research methodologies that no single research grouping could provide. The incorporation of early-stage and later stag ebiotechnology enterprises ensures that commercialisation of methodologies as well as the drug development process is covered in this ITN. We hope that MMBio will train scientists able to understand both the biological problem and the chemistry that holds the possible solution and develop original experimental approaches to stimulate European academic and commercial success in this area.

ES-Cat will use directed evolution as a tool to reproduce Nature's remarkable ability to generate molecular machines - in particular enzymes – that perform at levels near perfection. Instead of seeing rational and combinatorial approaches as alternatives, we combine them in this network to achieve a ‘smarter’ and more efficient exploration of protein sequence space. By harnessing the forces of Darwinian evolution and design in the laboratory we want to (i) screen large and diverse libraries for proteins with improved and useful functions, (ii) optimize existing proteins for applications in medicine or biotechnology and (iii) provide a better understanding of how existing enzymes evolved and how enzyme mechanisms can be manipulated. This Network brings together leading academic and industrial groups with diverse and complementary skills. The range of methodologies represented in ES-Cat allows an integrated approach combining in silico structural and sequence analysis with experimental high-throughput screening selection methods (phage-, ribozyme and SNAP display, robotic liquid handling, lab-on-a-chip/microfluidics) with subsequent systematic kinetic and biophysical analysis. This integration of methods and disciplines will improve the likelihood of success of directed evolution campaigns, shorten biocatalyst development times, and make protein engineering applicable to a wider range of industrial targets. It will also train the next generation of creative researchers ready to fill roles in tailoring enzymes and other proteins for industrial application in synthetic biology efforts to move towards a bio-based economy, rivaling advances that are being made in the US and allowing the EU economy to harvest its evident socio-economic benefits.