26/04/2006

Research organisations, universities and companies are uniting their skills and experience, as part of the "MUGEN" European Network of Excellence, in the quest for new methods of diagnosing and treating diseases caused by dysfunctions of the immune system. Twenty-four organisations from ten countries (Greece, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, USA) are participating in this network, coordinated by the Biomedical Sciences Research Centre "Alexandros Fleming".

The objective of the project, co-financed by the 6th Framework Programme for Research of the European Commission with 11 million euro for the period 2005-2009, is to develop a Network of European scientific and technological excellence for diseases connected to the immune system, such as multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.

Recent research on the mechanisms that regulate the immune system, its pathological processes and processes of immune deviation, have shown that the systemic or organ-specific inflammatory, infectious and autoimmune conditions share the same basic initiation and progression mechanisms.

In this project, the partners have the opportunity to cooperate in a new virtual research centre and take advantage of state-of-the-art genomic operation tools to further study those mechanisms and find new diagnosis and treatment methods.

Relevant operations include systematic study, mainly on murine models, for diseases of the immune system and processes on operational genomic platforms (transgenesis, targeted and random mutagenesis, expression profiling and bioinformatics). The development of effective meta-genomic approaches and new knowledge is expected to lead to innovative methods of treating diseases. Emphasis is given to the promotion and utilization of that knowledge, through educational seminars and events for specialised scientists, but also for the general public.

Additional information is available in the project's Web site.

Source: Biomedical Sciences Research Centre "Al. Fleming"