Achievements

WISER project offering advice to make our water systems cleaner, safer and more sustainable.

A European Union funded research project has opened up a radical new era in the world of vaccine discovery and production. Focused on veterinary vaccines, the project’s work has made possible a dramatically faster and more effective route to the creation of vaccines to combat some of the most devastating diseases affecting farm livestock.

The discoveries of pioneers such as Columbus, da Gama, and Cook led to transportation across oceans and this paved the way for large scale human settlements on new continents. Similar to the trans-Atlantic boats of the past, advanced space transportation systems will take today’s pioneer missions into space further and allow for enhanced mobility of humans and cargo between Earth and space.

The project AEROFAST supports these developments, refining aerocapture technology.

For those unfortunate to suffer from kidney failure, an organ transplant may seem like the best long-term treatment. But kidney transplants are loaded with risk, the most salient being the rejection of the donor organ by the host’s body. Now, however an Irish-led research project has developed a new drug that could succeed in preventing organ rejection, offering hope to thousands of patients seeking donor kidneys.

DevelopAKUre is a European Union (EU)-funded research project which is working to establish a safe, reliable treatment for a rare and hitherto incurable disease. Caused by a genetic mutation, Alkaptonuria (AKU) leads to a severe and early-onset form of osteoarthritis and can also cause heart problems

4th February 2014 - World Cancer Day

“If I have received radiotherapy to my abdomen (to treat cancer) and I have a heart problem or a new cancer 30 years later, to what extent is this linked to the radiotherapy I received?” asks Dr Lars Hjorth of Lund University in Sweden.

4th February 2014 - World Cancer Day

A multidisciplinary EU-funded research team has successfully tested a pioneering HIV-detection technique that is ten times more sensitive than any identification method used to date.

The new methodology, which offers a much simpler and cheaper naked-eye-based read-out and could be commercialised in future, has also achieved positive results in similar early detection tests for different types of cancer.
 

4th February 2014 - World Cancer Day

Cancer is one of the most pressing health matters of our time. It is a disease that attacks the very building blocks of life, leading to uncontrolled cell division and disabling programmed cell death. Almost everyone has known at least one person who has had to cope with cancer; it remains one of the leading causes of death in Europe.

4th February 2014 - World Cancer Day

Cancer causes some 13% of deaths worldwide. Of these deaths, some 90%  are caused not by the original cancer, but by its spread to other parts of the body.

These secondary cancers, known as metastases, are most often caused by ‘circulating tumour cells’ (CTCs) which escape from the primary tumour and travel around the body in the bloodstream. In the process, CTCs often undergo modifications that make them more resistant to treatment than the primary tumours.

4th February 2014 - World Cancer Day

Targeting existing proteins in the human body which contribute to the growth of cancerous cells can help researchers develop tailor-made treatments.

A team of EU researchers is working on ways to trick the proteins which ordinarily aid cancer growth into delivering therapeutic treatments directly to the cancerous cells.

Caves, catacombs and tunnels are becoming increasingly popular, with Europe boasting more than half of the world’s underground tourist attractions.

The UnderSafe project is developing a monitoring system to deal with the safety concerns and environmental hazards as a result of the rise in below-ground destinations.

50 % of Europeans are now overweight, 20 % are obese, and as these figures grow, the link with the epidemic growth of diabetes is becoming obvious. Health professionals are well aware of the relationship between a poor diet and lifestyle and the increasing risk of developing type 2 diabetes (where the body does not use insulin efficiently and sugar builds up in the blood).

According to the European Union (EU)-funded research project SUME (Sustainable Urban Metabolism for Europe) as much as three-fourths of the European population lives in cities, but the rapid expansion of urban space is being driven more by market forces than by urban planning.

That means that land, fuel and public money is being wasted, a situation that presents a new challenge to town planners – how to curb so-called “urban sprawl” by saving space and resources. The answer? Help city authorities find smart solutions to mesh urban planning, and housing and transportation policies into their future development.

When putting themselves in harm’s way to help others, rescue services are not always best protected from the potential danger they face. Researchers from the SAFEPROTEX project have taken a new approach in the development of high-quality protective clothing for emergency workers who might face multiple hazards (adverse weather, heat, chemicals, flammable liquids etc.) without compromising their ability to react in emergency situations.

In Europe, one in seven children will leave school or training early. Many subsequently struggle to find a job and end up psychologically stressed. Meanwhile, their unemployment also impacts society and carries economical costs. The European Union (EU) has set a benchmark to decrease early school leaving (ESL) rates to one in ten children by 2020 – and in February 2013, an EU-funded study was launched in nine countries to help achieve this goal.

Virtual Museums are an exciting development that allows ‘visitors’ to explore their cultural heritage in an interactive way. The international V-MusT.net project created a network of institutions to produce sustainable tools and share know-how on establishing such virtual reality experiences.

It sounds implausible, but European researchers are deadly serious about their aim to create reliable, low-energy microchips from what have traditionally been viewed as ‘unreliable’ components. The skill is to correct the errors to turn low-powered parts into efficient, reliable and, above-all, fault-tolerant chips. They propose to use nano-scale integration to build these next-generation chips.  

For professional engineers in the power industry, keeping distribution networks running smoothly is almost a point of honour. Electrical blackouts caused by system overload not only cause disruption to large numbers of people and businesses, they also bring political consequences and loss of trust in the industry. Maintaining power networks therefore involves 24-hour monitoring to ensure that supplies meet demand.

A European research project, Nu-Wave, has produced new tools to help Europe’s textile industry restore its position on the world market.

The EU-funded INGAS project has improved the designs for engines and vehicles that run on natural gas – making them more attractive to drive while benefiting the environment.