We aim to place Europe at the forefront of novel themes in emergent personalized nanomedicine. We are building communities within Europe to design and develop transformative research themes for improved wellbeing and economic healthcare.

Biomedicine for better life

1) We suggest to develop topic 'a' in a new departure: Biomed for better life, echoing the Work Programme 2016-2017- FET Proactive “Boosting emerging technologies”-.

a. Intra- and inter-cellular nanomedicine: new technologies to enable the study and engineering of processes within and between biological cells (in vitro and in vivo) and their exploitation in the context of tomorrow's medicine for purposes such as sensing, signalling, imaging, regulating, restoring or for mimicking or re-engineering intra- and inter-cellular physics and dynamics. These can include both natural and synthetic cells and where necessary, multiscale mathematical modelling and computational simulation.

• The big picture: Describe your vision for a game-changing future technology. Why is it new? What difference would it make for Europe's economy, society and citizens?

The maturation of nascent technologies that enable the study, engineering and exploitation of processes within and among living cells will be necessary for intracellular sensing, signalling, imaging, regulation and therapeutics.  The outputs will allow mimicking and re-engineering of intra- and inter-cellular physics and dynamics that will shape personalized medicine in tomorrow's world.  For instance, personalized medicine will benefit from nanodevice analysis at the single cell level in addition to averaging studies on populations of cells.

2) In addition we wish to apply our approach within topic 'b' iof the same area (Biomed for better life, within Work Programme 2016-2017- FET Proactive “Boosting emerging technologies”) to include other examples of physical medicine and therapy without limitation (not only electronics), including aging, with detailed consideration of its ethical ramifications.

• The big picture: Describe your vision for a game-changing future technology. Why is it new? What difference would it make for Europe's economy, society and citizens?

In the last fifty years, disease has increasingly been treated from a molecular perspective. Physical therapies such as conventional surgery or laser treatment are commonly used at the macro level. However the use of physical medicines or therapies at the cellular level is less common. One example in the electromagnetic domain is the use of micro- and nano particles to treat hyperthermia. Nanomedicine is therefore almost entirely unexplored. It promises to change personalized medicine by providing warnings and therapeutics in day-to-day life. Imagine a child born today: in 2086, he or she might wear a wrist watch that doubles as a reader of his or her circulating intracellular nanodevices, that then transmits the signals to a clinic for routine monitoring. This scenario would provide early warnings of major killers today, such as diabetes, neurological diseases, cancer and heart disease with enormous and far-reaching human and economic impacts.

• The work needed: What are the main breakthroughs that a proactive initiative on this would need to achieve? What range of disciplines and stakeholders should be involved? (common for topics 1 and 2 above)

In many cases the development of new technologies to enable the study and engineering of processes within and among biological cells is a problem of size and is referred to as the 'Tony's Beer Glass' problem: the size is challengingly small. Cells are at the scale of microns, necessitating the development of tools below this scale (at the micron and sub-micron level). This is a highly interdisciplinary problem in which many diverse scientific and technological disciplines need to converge and harmonize, including medicine, physiology, material science, optical physics, computer science, synthetic chemistry, micro-nanotechnology, biochemical functionalization, cell biology, molecular biology, mathematics and others.

• The opportunity: What makes you believe that, with suitable time and investment, this can be achieved? Are there developments in science or society that make it plausible? What will drive this to real innovation and impact? (common for topics 1 and 2 above)

Medicine must continue to evolve if it is to meet growing societal needs of increased and aging populations. Current technologies to design and create conceptually novel, complex and small devices are available but are in their infancy. An awareness of the interdisciplinary nature of this approach is crystallizing in young scientists, who are prepared to depart the comfort of to engage others from different backgrounds and with diverse academic competences. We feel that the integration of these diverse technical approaches will prove essential for creative innovation. We also feel that the EU provides an environment that is uniquely conducive to fostering this trans-disciplinary culture.

 ​