The EU-Research Projekt ImmunoSep starts and members of the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation Mihai Netea and Joachim L. Schultze are part of the research consortium led by the Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Within the next 4 years more then 10 Million Euro are provided by the EU-wide Horizon2020 program and the University of Bonn will receive around 750.000 Euro.
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by the body’s response to a bacterial, fungal or viral infection. Most frequently it affects adults over the age of 65, children younger than one year of age, people with chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, lung disease, cancer, and kidney disease as well as those with a weakened immune system. Unfortunately, sepsis is still a common occurrence with an estimated 50 million cases occurring worldwide each year. It is one of the most common causes of death for hospitalised patients in European countries with a high mortality rate of 30-40%. Even though the prescription of antibiotics and the establishment of Intensive Care Units (ICUs) have already greatly reduced the number of sepsis-related deaths, the introduction of an immunotherapy approach is intended to greatly improve the outcome of the disease for those affected.
This is where ImmunoSep comes into play. While past studies have promoted a ‘one-size-fits-all’ treatment approach, this multinational project focuses on the exploration of personalised immunotherapy. This takes into account that although overinflammation and immunoparalysis play a critical role in the physiological processes of sepsis, they manifest differently in individual patients. Therefore only a precision medicine-based approach for immunotherapy will be able to significantly improve the outcome of this severe clinical condition.
