Edukad projektid

eesti keeles / in English

Developing minimally invasive, tools and technologies for high throughput, low cost molecular assays for the early diagnosis of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders

acronym: SCHIZDX
start: 2008-10-01
end: 2012-03-31
 
programme: FP7 - Euroopa Liidu 7. raamprogramm
sub-programme: HEALTH - Tervis
instrument: CP-TP - Koostööprojektid spetsiaalsetele gruppidele
call identifier: FP7-HEALTH-2007-B
project number: 223427
duration in months: 42
partner count: 9
 
abstract: Schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder are a major burden to affected individuals and their families and to society at large. These two severe mental illnesses affect at least 2% of the population worldwide, and whilst 50% of sufferers do not receive adequate treatment, they cost hundreds of billions in healthcare provision, treatments and lost earnings. The current diagnosis of schizophrenia (and bipolar disorder etc.) is rather subjective, not only because of the complex spectrum of symptoms and their similarity to other mental disorders, but also due to the lack of empirical disease markers. This result in long delays (up to 1-3 years) before appropriate therapeutics is prescribed to first episode schizophrenics. Early treatment is associated with greatly improved patient outcomes. There is therefore a major unmet clinical need for empirical diagnostic tests for high throughput screening of biological fluids that would enable early and accurate diagnosis of schizophrenia and related disorders. The identification of specific biomarkers for mental disorders would revolutionise the clinical management of affected individuals. Biomarkers will help in the identification of disease sub-types, aid in predicting and monitoring treatment response and compliance, and identify novel drug targets. If such biomarkers can be found in readily accessible body fluids they open up the possibility of developing new early or pre-symptomatic diagnostics and/or treatments to improve outcomes or even prevent disease. The objective of our project is to identify biomarkers of disease and develop a diagnostic assay panel/tool for the high throughput screening of biological samples for clinical research. Moreover this platform will be utilised by SMEs for drug design and development for mental disorders research into new animal models for mental dirders and identifying biomarkers for other mental disorders
partner no and role partner name country contact person web page
1 coordinator PSYNOVA NEUROTECH LTD UK Barbara Baron http://www.psynova.com
2 partner THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE UK Dawn Barker http://www.cam.ac.uk
3 partner ZENTRALINSTITUT FUER SEELISCHE GESUNDHEIT DE Simone Fuchs http://www.zi-mannheim.de
4 partner WESTFAELISCHE WILHELMS-UNIVERSITAET MUENSTER DE Karl-Heinz Runde http://www.uni-muenster.de
5 partner EDI EXPERIMENTELLE UND DIAGNOSTISCHE IMMUNOLOGIE GMBH DE Thomas Joos http://www.edigmbh.de
8 partner PERA INNOVATION LIMITED UK David Cartlidge http://www.pera.com
9 partner National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training Ltd IE Pauline Rudd http://www.nibrt.ie
10 partner STORKBIO EE Kristi Kurg http://www.storkbio.com
12 partner MYRIAD RBM INC CORPORATION US Sam Labrie http://www.rulesbasedmedicine.com