Prestigious grant HORIZON EUROPE - “BEATsep” will tackle long-term consequences of sepsis.

The research consortium BEATsep, established by the Cellular and Molecular Immunoregulation (CMI) research team at the International Clinical Research Centre (ICRC), has been awarded a 6.9 million euro HORIZON EUROPE grant. The project entitled “Biomarkers established to stratify sepsis long-term adverse effects to improve patients’ health and quality of life (BEATsep) aims to define markers of poor recovery of patients after sepsis and septic shock. This will be achieved through the discovery of novel mechanisms and their markers predicting the decline of health-related quality of life after sepsis. Sepsis and septic shock, affecting up to 50 million people worldwide with mortality reaching 20%, leaves large cohorts of vulnerable patients suffering from long-term complications that affect their quality of life.

Sepsis and septic shock affects 50 million people worldwide and the mortality rates can reach 20%. Moreover, sepsis survivors suffer from long term and diverse complications that lower their quality of life. This is only the third project in the Research and Innovation category focusing on population health to be coordinated from the Czech Republic. "The project is the result of our efforts over several years within the consortium and has the chance to understand better and fundamentally change the recovery of pediatric and adult patients who have suffered septic shock. We would not have been able to develop this project without the intensive administrative support at the ICRC," added Dr. Jan Frič, head of the CMI.

The BEATsep project will apply an interdisciplinary approach bringing together research and clinical teams working on specific aspects of the development, treatment and prevention of the long-term consequences of sepsis and its impact on patients' quality of life. Comprehensive clinical and research data generated during the project will be integrated using artificial intelligence algorithms into an easy-to-use predictive tool capable of identifying patients at high risk of complications. Furthermore, the consortium plans to design a tertiary prevention strategy to improve the recovery outcomes.

For the next five years, the consortium brings six European countries together in a joint mission to understand and fight the long consequences of sepsis.

The consortium is coordinated by ICRC-FNUSA and will consist of leading European institutions including: 1) CIML - Centre d'immunologie de Marseille-Luminy – (Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS/Inserm); 2) The Institute of Innate Immunity, at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn, Germany; 3) Faculty of Medicine at the Comenius University in Slovakia; 4) the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Traumatology, Vienna, Austria; 5) BioVariance GmbH, Germany; 6) Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia; 7) National Institute of Health, Prague, Czechia; 8) University of Galway and 9) APHM - Marseille Hospitals. BEATsep assembles renowned experts in immuno-metabolism and epigenetics, immunophenotyping, diagnostic research and several clinical teams treating adult and pediatric sepsis patients. "It has taken nearly two years of intensive preparation and networking to assemble the consortium. We used the advantage of bringing together teams with whom we have been already collaborating on several other projects." says Dr. Marcela Hortová-Kohoutková from the CMI research group, who co-headed the project's preparation.

In total, 9 partners from renowned European research and clinical institutions and 1 commercial partner in six EU countries will be involved in the BEATsep. The project is an example of an innovative and successful combination of translational and clinical research, the know-how of several international scientists, and the collaboration between hospitals, universities and other scientific institutions.

For more information and updates:

@BEATsepsis (X), www.beatsepsis.eu, https://shorturl.at/isRZ9 (LinkedIN)

The International Clinical Research Centre (ICRC) is a joint facility of St. Anne's University Hospital in Brno and the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University.