B-SMART kicks off in Utrecht

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s affect over 7 million people in Europe. Despite this fact, few treatments for this group of diseases are available so far. Nanomedical approaches can make a difference, providing new therapeutic options by helping drugs to enter the brain. Therefore, the multinational research project B-SMART sets out to provide an RNA-based therapy perspective for neurodegenerative diseases in the medium-term, targeting the direct cause of the disease instead of its symptoms.

On 1^st and 2^nd February 2017, the B-SMART consortium officially embarked on its mission at its kick-off meeting hosted by the project’s coordinator, Ray Schiffelers from Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht at the dignified Faculty Club in Utrecht city centre. The meeting was a perfect opportunity for the consortium members to come together for the first time and to lay the foundation for a successful cooperation in the years ahead. After warmly welcoming the consortium, the coordinator briefly sketched the route from call to grant the consortium successfully accomplished together. All partners shortly introduced themselves and highlighted their roles in the project. To ensure a successful implementation, the work package leaders presented the planned work and objectives in the different work packages within B-SMART, and the consortium jumped right into in-depth discussions, defining the steps to be taken within the individual work packages to keep the project on track right from the start.

B-SMART assembles a multi-national team of leading experts from 9 partnering institutions with long-standing experience in their respective fields. The B-SMART partners are involved in numerous exceptional national and international research programmes targeting close communication with the industry throughout all project stages in order to bridge the research-industry gap and enable timely exploitation of the project results.

The project is funded with a total budget of €6 million over the next five years by the European Commission’s current Research Framework Programme Horizon 2020.

Eurice is management partner of B-SMART and supports the consortium in the successful performance during the course of the project. As part of the kick-off meeting, Eurice addressed project management, contractual and administrative issues in order to inform the project partners about H2020 regulations and procedures.