Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movement disorder, but current diagnostic criteria identify individuals late, impeding the development of neuroprotective therapies: There is the critical yet unmet need to identify the disease onset timely and to define the inception of pathology. Advancing recognition of early motor deterioration and coupling it with biological evidence of pathological α-synuclein will overcome present barriers and tackle the questions when and where PD starts. Isolated REM sleep behavior disorder, confidently detectable by polysomnography, signals an early α-synucleinopathy. Overseeing a large cohort, I will integrate multimodal motor data on speech, facial expression, hand movements, gait, and long-term actigraphy within a machine learning framework, permitting a tablet-based application for highly mobile uses. This earliest PD motor-fingerprint, common to PD in general, will enable prospective large-scale screening from an unselected population. Motor phenotype detection will be paired with biological confirmation of pathological α-synuclein species in the cerebrospinal fluid using precise seed aggregation assays (SAA), capturing imminent PD earlier than ever before. This universal identification of the earliest phase of PD will allow to explore the initial spread of α-synuclein pathology, elucidating variations of pathology initiation: I will employ α-synuclein SAA on biosamples from the olfactory epithelium (brain-first) and the peripheral autonomic nervous system (body-first) to decode fundamental subtypes. Re-Start PD pairs general PD characteristics - its primal motor phenotype and its biological α-synuclein signatures - outlining the earliest phase of PD prospectively and being readily transferable for broad application to kickstart timely therapeutic innovations. Complementary biobanking, brain-imaging, and follow-up of this unique cohort will foster further biomarker development and subtype determination.

The overall goal of DIGYMATEX is to provide evidence-based tools that will assist in understanding and measuring children’s digital maturity. These tools are intended to be used e.g. by families, schools, and policy stakeholders. The first tool is the development of an innovative and market-ready instrument - the Digital Youth Maturity Index (DYMI) – as a cloud-based open-access tool in order to establish and implement a comprehensive understanding and taxonomy of children’s digital maturity leading to the prediction and explanation of benefits and risks regarding children’s ICT-related behaviour. The Digital Youth Maturity Index will act as a measurement tool for classification and segmentation of user groups as well as a behavioural prediction tool based on machine-learning techniques. The second tool is the development and application of the DiGYou-program - a technology-related solution and recommendation program, which is based on as well as supports the application of the DYMI. The two innovative tools will directly target the main impact goals associated with the call. With the Digital Youth Maturity Index (DMYI), the project will be able to develop and implement a comprehensive taxonomy, which will inform relevant stakeholders and practitioners on the long-term effects of ICT on child behaviour. Furthermore, with the DMYI in combination with the DigYou3-program, we will develop concrete solutions in order to contribute to a safer and more beneficial use of digital technologies by children and we will be able to formulate recommendations in support of national and European policies in the field. DYGIMATEX - builds on an inter-disciplinary, multi-method approach by integrating expertise, methods and knowledge from different research areas like business management, psychology, sociology, neuroscience, media and information systems, as well as industry partners (i.e., from IOT, food, telecommunication) and policy stakeholders (i.e., education, EU policy).

Liver cirrhosis is a very common chronic disease and one of the leading causes of death in European. Moreover, cirrhosis has a marked impact in patients quality of life and represents a major burden for health systems. Treatment of cirrhosis is currently based on symptomatic management of complications and has not changed substantially in the last 20 years. There is an unmet need for therapies that target the pathobiology of cirrhosis. The objective of LIVERHOPE project is to evaluate a novel therapeutic strategy for patients with cirrhosis based on a combination of rifaximin and simvastatin, targeting the main pathophysiological mechanisms of disease progression , namely the impairment in the gut-liver axis and the persistent hepatic and systemic inflammatory response. This dual therapeutic approach is supported by preclinical data showing excellent and very promising results. We will perform two randomized double-blind trials to investigate safety, tolerability and efficacy of combination of simvastatin plus rifaximin in patients with decompensated cirrhosis in 5 EU countries (285 patients will be enrolled in two trials in DE, ES, FR, IT, UK). The expected impact is to halt progression to acute-on-chronic liver failure, the main cause of death, to decrease complications of the disease, to reduce hospital readmissions, to improve cost-effectiveness of therapy. Our final aim is to improve patients quality-of-life and increase survival as patients‘ care is the core of LIVERHOPE. Within the project we will also investigate biomarkers of response to treatment and disease progression that can be useful in clinical practice for improving the treatment of patients. We will invest our effort also in communication and dissemination activities for increasing awareness about chronic liver diseases in European countries so that preventive measures can be established to decrease the burden of cirrhosis and reduce social stigmatization of patients with chronic liver diseases.