Building the European Nanomedicine Research and Innovation Area: 10 years funding innovative research projects

Precision Nanomedicine Volume 2 Issue 2 Table of Contents

Prec. Nanomed. 2019 Apr;2(2):270-277, EDITORIAL It has been 10 years since the establishment of EuroNanoMed (ENM), presently in its third phase. For those 10 years, research and innovation funding organisations in Europe and beyond have been joining forces to fund excellent innovative research projects in three main topics defined by the European Technology Platform on Nanomedicine: targeted drug delivery, diagnostics, and regenerative medicine. Ten joint transnational calls have been launched (the 10th call is ongoing). So far, 90 transnational projects have been funded, including 460 research groups from over 20 countries. In the Joint Transnational Call 2017—co-funded by national and regional funding organizations and the European Commission (EC) —16 projects were funded with a total investment of 14 million euros, including 3.3 million euros from the EC. In addition to ENM's main activity of funding transnational innovative research projects, it collaborates with sister initiatives in nanomedicine and translational research. ENM has organised review seminars as well as safety, ethics, and regulatory affairs training workshops. The purpose of this article is to introduce the ENM initiatives to the scientific community, that together with its collaborators shape the map of nanomedicine in Europe. Prec. Nanomed. 2019 Apr;2(2):278-302: POTENTIAL CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE From the Clinical Editor: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) can be used for a variety of diseases such as cancer, psoriasis, macular degeneration etc. with the aim being minimally invasive and toxic. The authors describe the development and characterization of Near-Infrared (NIR) photosensitizer (silicon and zinc based) human serum albumin nanoparticles and their potential applicability in PDT including in vivo studies for treatment of atherosclerotic plaques. They could show the successful concentration of the nanoparticles in the plaques and after illumination a good cell-killing activity including visualization of the respective areas offering the potential to be a candidate to treat cardiovascular diseases in the future. Prec. Nanomed. 2019 Jan;2(1):249-255: POTENTIAL CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE From the Clinical Editor: Transdermal drug delivery is a very attractive option in clinical practice. Nonetheless, exact interactions between various drugs and the skin are not fully understood. In this study, the authors investigated this aspect using terahertz scanning reflectometry (TSR) and terahertz spectrometry (TS) to study the surface-mediated FXII activation, as well as penetration of the FXII and an in-house compound, UM8190. The findings may open the door to studying other compounds and could potentially lead to better drug design and optimal dose delivery in the clinic.