European researchers have made leading contributions to the large genomic, transcriptomic and clinical datasets from patients with chronic diseases. Advances in information science provide unprecedented opportunities for using these datasets to elucidate the complex biology of these disorders, its influence by environmental triggers, and to personalise their management. Currently, exploitation of these opportunities is limited by a shortage of researchers with the required informatics skills and knowledge of requisite data protection principles. HELICAL addresses this unmet need by developing a trans-sectoral and interdisciplinary training programme that builds on the expertise and existing collaborations of its partners. It provides 15 early stage researchers with training in analysis of large datasets, using autoimmune vasculitis as a paradigm as it is scalable, and as comprehensive biological and clinical datasets are already available. The HELICAL training program focuses on three complementary areas: application of informatics to such datasets to gain new biological insights; translation of these into practical clinical outputs and management of ethical constraints imposed on such studies. The programme will be delivered through a multidisciplinary, trans-sectoral partnership of Academic and Industry researchers with expertise in basic biomedical research, epidemiology, statistics, machine learning, health data governance and ethics. Therefore, HELICAL exploits recent advances in data science to link research datasets with longitudinal healthcare records, based on the robust ethical foundation required for linkage studies using near-patient data, to address key experimental questions. The results will have obvious potential for transforming healthcare in the field of autoimmune disease. The training provided addresses a key skills gap in the European workforce and should make the ESR eminently employable in academic, industrial and clinical sectors.

Background: EU countries face large health challenges to combat chronic diseases. Recently, systems medicine has emerged as a promising discipline to accelerate the translation of basic research into applications for improved diagnostics and personalized treatment. Its power arises from the integration of laboratory and computational approaches crossing research disciplines and sectors to solve clinical questions. COSMIC delivers the next generation of leading, entrepreneurial, and innovative systems medicine professionals having expertise, skills, and experience to successfully combat complex human disorders. These professional will find excellent career opportunities. COSMIC focuses on B-cell neoplasia and rheumatoid arthritis, prototypical diseases originating from abnormal functioning of immune cells, often resulting in similar antigen specificities. COSMIC enables Early Stage Researchers to play a leading role in this exciting field. Approach: COSMIC develops and integrate experimental and computational approaches and establish a unique cross-fertilization between oncology and auto-immunity. In addition to transferable skills, the training program focuses on establishing a double expertise in laboratory and computational to address clinical questions. It involves a wide-range of stakeholders: (pre)clinical departments, companies, patient groups, students, and the general public. COSMIC will establish a link with the leading European EASyM and ISBE initiatives, and aims to harmonize systems medicine training throughout Europe by connecting to other EU (Marie Curie systems medicine) training initiatives. Impact: COSMIC (i) significantly improves ESR career perspectives (ii) leads to new public-private collaborations increasing competitiveness for companies; (iii) contributes to future oncology and immunology medical care; (iv) contributes to the EU systems medicine best practices.

The prostate cancer Extracellular Vesicle LifeCycle (proEVLifeCycle) network is an innovative, multidisciplinary training program focused on understanding the biology, biomarker potential and function of extracellular vesicles (EVs) to resolve unmet clinical needs of prostate cancer (PCa). It is within this realm, that we will equip early stage researchers with the knowledge, tools and a creative ethos to be independent scientists, leaders, and drivers of innovation. The lifecycle of EVs is poorly understood and their potential as non-invasive biomarkers and therapy target/agents, a growing area of interest. This research can perfectly be integrated with the high need for novel biomarkers and therapy targets for PCa. Any relief in the burden of this disease will have major impact on the huge socio-economic problems for patients, families, caregivers and society. The ambitious scientific objectives are to unravel the mysteries of EV biogenesis, homing and uptake to explain how vesicles operate in disease processes; their heterogeneity, their molecular complexity, the biological functions they drive, their local and systemic dissemination and how these may be manipulated. Using state-of-the-art, network-wide shared model systems, imaging and profiling tools, and systems biology, the program will enlighten the lifecycle of EVs and identify novel EV biomarkers and PCa therapy targets to address the unmet clinical needs. Our original network of 7 academic and 3 company beneficiaries and 11 partners, provides optimal scientific training, crosssectoral awareness, entrepreneurship skills, communication in the modern age, extensive opportunities for mobility and patient-facing experiences. We herein meet identified EU-skills gaps providing well-rounded and inventive experts primed for influential careers, contributing to patient well-being and economic prosperity within the EU.

Breast and colorectal cancer (BC and CRC) are the most frequent cancers accounting for 19% of all deaths from cancer in Europe. In case of triple-negative BC (TNBC) targeted therapies are not available and non-selective chemotherapy is the only treatment option. Targeted therapy has been approved for the treatment of advanced CRC, but response rates are low and treatment is limited to a subgroup of patients. Also, TNBC and CRC patients are prone to develop metastases and have a poor prognosis underpinning the need for new targeted and broadly applicable therapeutic strategies. Tumor cell secretion contributes to hallmarks of cancer e.g. hyperproliferation, evasion of growth suppression, loss of cell polarity, activation of cell motility, invasion and metastasis, shaping of the tumor microenvironment through altered presentation of proteins and the secretome, and resistance to cell death. Dysregulated secretion is thus a driver of cancer progression and therefore holds promise as a general therapeutic target for the treatment of cancers. However, strategies to exploit the secretory pathway for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes are still in their infancy due to the incomplete understanding of how this pathway is regulated by aberrant signaling. The overall research objective of SECRET is to drive the understanding of the mutual regulation of the secretory pathway and signaling in cancer, which will serve as a platform to identify and interrogate novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. SECRET comprises 11 beneficiaries and 7 partner organizations from 9 countries. Coordinated by the University of Stuttgart, SECRET will train 15 talented ESRs in the field of translational cancer systems cell biology and systems medicine towards a career in industry or academia through a highly interdisciplinary and intersectoral research training programme and inspire them to exploit the SECRETory pathway as a treasure trove to design novel therapeutic strategies against cancer.