P4Health strategic project officially launched!

The beginning of a new era in precision medicine  

The largest project so far at Łukasiewicz – PORT, with funding of €15 million under the Teaming for Excellence competition of Horizon Europe, is expected to optimize the diagnosis of oncological and neurobiological diseases, develop concepts for personalized medicine, develop new diagnostic tools and implement them in everyday medical practice, and, on the basis of international cooperation with partners, create a center of scientific excellence at the institute. 

What does P4Health mean?  

The project is intended to be the beginning of a transition from the current model of treating patients with one drug for all, to predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory medicine. This will be helped by combining clinical research with basic research: samples of biological materials obtained from the hospital will be analyzed using research tools that allow all genes or proteins to be analyzed simultaneously. The information obtained in this process will make it possible to tailor individualized treatment to the patient, and will ultimately go back to the patient’s physician.  

On February 18, Łukasiewicz – PORT officially inaugurated P4Health together with representatives of the established consortium partners CERBM in Strasbourg (France) and King’s College in London. The project manager, Dr. Witold Konopka, introducing its ideas to the guests and collaborators gathered in the auditorium, emphasized that the key word in the P4Health project is stratification, understood as distinguishing patients on the basis of certain characteristics, test results, and response to treatment, which will make it possible to tailor treatment to the individual. – We want to set standards so that doctors can and will be able to choose the right therapy for individual patients.  

Dr. Michał Malewicz, who initiated PORT’s path to acquiring and implementing the project, in turn stressed the importance of the experience gained in previous projects and the gradual building of the institute’s competence: – We started a few years ago with a smaller, joint Twinning grant and moved on to a much more complex grant, which we are now starting. But this is not the end of the story, we want to develop further and become part of an international hub of excellence in the future.  Experience has shown that it is impossible to skip over these early stages, to skip smaller, individual actions and collaborative efforts. To become a fully developed and ready for the next challenges, we need to go step by step, and this takes time and commitment. 

P4Health – technology platforms and research project 

The P4Heath project is divided into five technology platforms combining clinical research, technology, bioanalysis and cellular engineering.  

1. Clinical and Biobanking Platform  

Leader – Patrycja Gazinska, PhD. 

This is where samples from clinical sites go, which will then be analyzed in subsequent platforms using all available technologies. The first platform will enable the collection of biological samples from patients and information obtained during analysis. 

2. Spatial and Computational Pathology Platform 

Leader – Patrycja Gazinska, PhD. 

The platform will use biomarkers in pathology analysis, combining spatial and computational technology to accurately determine disease mechanisms. 

3. Bioanalytics Platform 

Leader – Witold Konopka, PhD. 

A personalized biomedical profile of disease will be produced. The platform mainly focuses on genomics, proteomics and metabolomics, i.e. the study of changes in the genome in response to various factors and metabolites – molecules formed by metabolic processes. 

4. Functional Validation in Disease Models Platform 

Leader – Agnieszka Krzyżosiak PhD. 

The platform will conduct pharmacological testing in previously created disease models reflecting patient biology. 

5. Cell Engineering and Cell-based Therapies Platform 

Leader – Grzegorz Chodaczek, PhD. 

Scientists, using cell engineering, will select appropriate “tailored” therapies, among others, developing immunotherapies. 

Part of P4Health is also a research process, the role of which is to validate all platforms. Dr. Patrycja Gazinska, who directs research in the project, adds: – It is important that the samples collected in hospitals, enriched with all the data obtained during the analysis, will go to the biobank we are developing at Łukasiewicz – PORT, where they will be available to researchers around the world. 

Cooperation with clinicians will be essential for the proper functioning of the platforms. 

Crucial project for Łukasiewicz – PORT development  

The Łukasiewicz Research Network’s strategy for the next decade includes the creation of new organizational structures, i.e. centers of excellence, which will realize the objectives of a modern innovation ecosystem based on interdisciplinary teams operating at the national level and cooperating with key European partners.  

The P4Health project has a 6-year timeframe, but the real success will be to continue joint international activities after its completion and to make Wrocław part of a European excellence hub – a center of excellence implementing personalized medicine and artificial intelligence for detailed analysis of biomedical data.  

 – Wrocław has great potential in biotech sciences, and Łukasiewicz – PORT has the infrastructure to study rare diseases at the molecular level. P4Health is one of the most ambitious precision medicine initiatives currently underway in Europe. Together we hope to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of patients – says Prof. Jarosław Bosy, director of Łukasiewicz – PORT. 

The institute has set itself the goal of becoming a leader in applied research in Central and Eastern Europe and a reference center for advanced diagnostics by 2030, providing high efficiency in coordinating international grants, stable profit from services and internally generated IP, and an incubator for project spin-offs. The next stage of development and the result of a well-executed project will be the role of a leading center in applied research in the European Union and the position of an advisor to the government and NGOs in this area.  

The success of Polish science – 3 x Teaming for Excellence 

P4Heath is not the only project just starting that was selected in the Teaming for Excellence competition. Three centers of excellence will be established simultaneously: 

• Center of Excellence (TRIO-VI CoE) coordinated by the International Center for Translational Eye Research, the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences 

• Particle Astrophysics Science and Technology Center (Astrocent Plus) coordinated by the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Polish Academy of Sciences 

• Center of Excellence in Precision Phenotyping and BioBanking Data (P4Health) coordinated by the Łukasiewicz Research Network – PORT. 

This is a great success for Polish science – we were the only country to win funding for as many as three projects in this round of the European competition, so a joint kick-off meeting under the banner of United in Excellence was held on February 19, Polish Science Day, at the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw. It was attended, among others, by representatives of the European Commission, the European Research Executive Agency (REA), the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Polish Academy of Sciences. 

Prof. Jarosław Bosy emphasized during the ceremony that Łukasiewicz – PORT has a clear goal and consistently pursues it: – By acting together, exchanging knowledge, building common databases and trusting each other, we are able to achieve ambitious goals. That’s why we have decided to expand the center on the scale of Wrocław, and we have already taken the first steps in this direction with the recent signing of an agreement to create the Wrocław BioTech Hub. Thanks to the cooperation of 7 Wrocław research institutions, the integration of Wrocław science is becoming a reality.