Our Center participates in first Horizon 2020 Coordination at the MedUni Vienna

Assoc. Prof. Mag. Dr. Enikö Kállay from the Department of Pathophysiology and Allergy Research (IPA) will coordinate a European Training Network, supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA), under Horizon 2020.

Ao.Univ.-Prof. DI Dr. Isabella Ellinger (IPA) and ao.Univ.-Prof. DI Dr. Sabina Baumgartner-Parzer from the Clinical Department of Endocrinology & Metabolism, Internal Medicine III, will also participate in the project.

About the project

“CaSR Biomedicine” is a follow-on of the previous, very successful training network “Multifaceted CaSR“ (2011-2014).

From the 3.657 million Euros funding more than 500,000 € will come to MedUni Vienna. The Partner organisations of the MedUni Vienna in this ETN are the University of Oxford (UK), Université de Picardie Jules Verne (F), Cardiff University (UK), University of Manchester (UK), University of Florence (I), Fundació Sant Joan de Deu, Barcelona (E), University of Copenhagen (D), University of Liverpool (UK), Stichting VU-VUMC Amsterdam (NL), Biotalentum Ltd. Gödöllö (H), S.A.F.A.N. Bioinformatics, Turin (I) and TissueGnostics, Vienna (A). Further support will come from Novartis Pharma AG (CH), ImaBiotech (F), AHT Management Kft. (H), FH JOANNEUM GmbH (A), and Amgen GmbH (A) who participate as associates.

“CaSR Biomedicine” will investigate the complexity of CaSR signalling and function to identify CaSR-based therapeutic approaches to diseases linked to changes in CaSR expression or function (such as Alzheimer’s Disease, cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, sarcopenia, and cancer).

The calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) is a G-protein coupled receptor that plays a pivotal role in systemic calcium metabolism by regulating parathyroid hormone secretion and urinary calcium excretion. Abnormal CaSR function is implicated in calciotropic disorders such as hyperparathyroidism, and in non-calciotropic disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease, cardiovascular disease, sarcopenia, and cancer. These account for >25% of the global disease burden.

“CaSR Biomedicine” is a fully translational project that utilises a single molecule, the CaSR, influencing a range of physiological and disease processes, to develop a unique, strong multidisciplinary and intersectoral scientific training programme preparing 14 young scientists to become specialists in GPCR biology and signalling. Besides the scientific training, the young scientists will be trained in systems biology, in ethical issues, in project-, quality-, and risk-management, in presentation techniques and scientific writing.

Out of the 14 Early Stage Researchers (ESR) trained in this network, 2 will be supervised and mentored at the IPA. Thus the IPA is not only the coordinator of the whole network, but it is also deeply involved in the training and coaching of the ESRs.

28.08.2015