The revolution of biotechnology has led to the creation of various types of therapeutic biologics with the potential to provide treatment for new chronic and malignant diseases. Though the potential advantages of biologics lay in their high specificity and potency combined with few side effects, their formulation still remains a large challenge to pharmaceutical scientists. This is in part due to the complex, not-well understood relationship between the physicochemical properties of proteins and formulation conditions required for protein stability. A comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind protein stabilization and solubility would provide the formulation scientists with knowledge of the interplay between formulation and stability that in turn could potentially make formulation development faster, cheaper and less labour intensive than the currently used broad screening approach. Understanding the susceptibilities of formulations to protein aggregation and denaturation can reduce the response time to for instance product failure. Few universities in Europe have formulation of biologics as a scientific subject. Consequently, the pharmaceutical industry is forced to train scientists - a challenge for larger companies, and an insurmountable task for smaller companies. Scientists in the field of structural biology, biophysics, protein formulation and stability have formed a consortium to systematically map physicochemical properties of biologics, formulation conditions and protein stability. The main objective of the consortium is to provide a new generation of innovative and entrepreneurial early-stage researchers that will develop methodologies, tools and databases to guide the formulation of robust biologics. The consortium will not only provide an excellent platform to train a new generation of formulation scientists, but also establish avenues for designing new formulation strategies and thereby securing the leading edge of EU expertise.

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.

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).