Bacteria and other disease-causing organisms that can no longer be controlled or killed with medicines are called multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs). MDROs pose a major problem to the healthcare system as they can cause severe infections and affect the weakest, in particular young children, the elderly or people with health conditions such as chronic lung, heart, and kidney disease. In Europe, MDROs cause approximately 670,000 infections per year. 33,000 patients do not survive the infection due to the lack of treatment options. Our aim is to develop a much-needed new strategy for the treatment of MDROs. To this end, we have designed a 'nitroxoline shuttle'. Nitroxoline is an antibiotic drug that effectively kills a broad variety of bacteria; however, its use is limited to bladder infections due to its inability of reaching other parts of the human body. The 'shuttle' is a chemical substance that, when linked to nitroxoline, will allow to safely transport this powerful antibiotic to bacteria in various parts of the human body. In the project, we will manufacture the 'nitroxoline shuttle' and carry out tests to characterise its ability to kill bacteria in a targeted manner.

Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a common, heritable, chronic, and recurrent disorder that represents a critical public health problem, due to its prevalence, its high degree of disability and psychiatric and medical comorbidities (MC): these represent a significant additive burden for BD patients, with a large clinical heterogeneity with an urgent need for personalised treatment and management. BIPCOM overarching purpose is to study MC in people with BD and to improve diagnostic and treatment outcomes with a precision medicine approach targeting 3 objectives: (1) to identify prevalence rates, risk and protective factors and natural history of MC among subjects with BD, through analyses of the Nordic biobanks and medical registers (WP2) and a cross-sectional study exploiting existing datasets of patients with BD (WP3); (2) to conduct an Exploratory Clinical Study (ECS – WP4) involving 360 subjects (90x4 recruiting sites), to assess the overall clinical profile of these patients and quantify the 1-year incidence of specific risk factors for the onset of metabolic syndrome (MetS) (WP5); (3) to develop a Clinical Support Tool (CST), including a set of recommendations, to support individualized clinical decision-making in BD comorbidity management and improve prevention, early detection and effective treatment, while ensuring the translation of project results’ into clinical practice (WP5 and 6). BIPCOM will be implemented through continuous consultations with stakeholders (scientific and patients’ associations, users and families), for ensuring results’ acceptability and transferability. The successful implementation of the project will have a significant impact upon the general health of people with BD, eventually leading to lower mortality rates and reduced incidence of severe disabilities, whilst providing reliable methods and tools for patients’ stratification and personalized treatments.