Two new projects worth of 12 million for medical research
St. Anne’s University Hospital Brno was the only hospital to succeed in the competition of universities and research institutes in the public tender of the INTER-COST program. The INTER-COST program financially supports the involvement of Czech researchers in the European COST program, which enables the creation of European scientific cooperation projects and networks. Under the leadership of prof. Mikulík and prof. Jančálek two projects were submitted – one for FNUSA and one for its International Center for Clinical Research – thanks to which the hospital will receive more than 12 million CZK for medical research, from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
The first of the projects is abbreviated IRIS-TEPUS (Implementation Research for Improving Stroke Care: Translation of Evidence to Patients Using Science) and the FNUSA-ICRC Stroke Team is its main coordinator. “The aim of the project, which focuses on the treatment of stroke, is a more effective implementation of evidence-based medicine in clinical practice in Eastern European countries,” said prof. MUDr. Robert Mikulík, Ph.D., leader of the Stroke Team. “The main activities of the project include mapping the quality of stroke care in Eastern Europe, where no quality measurement has been performed so far, and the records are completely missing,” added prof. Mikulík. “This will help us set strategies to improve stroke care and ensure that evidence-based practices are used where this has not been possible before.” This project directly complements the activities of the international IRENE COST Action project, which involves 60 experts from 30 European countries and prof. Mikulík is initiator and main researcher there.
The second grant was awarded to the team of prof. MUDr. Radim Jančálek, Ph.D., Head of the Neurosurgical Clinic FNUSA. The project is called Mapping of glioma heterogeneity and infiltration extend by MR imaging biomarkers and is focused on the use of magnetic resonance in the study of gliomas. Gliomas are invasive tumors in the brain or spinal cord, and despite significant improvements in cancer treatment for many types of cancer, it is still a very difficult diagnosis to treat. “Gliomas are tumors with a heterogeneous microenvironment, which means that different areas of the tumor may respond differently to treatment. The aim of our study is to verify whether with the help of various biomarkers obtained by magnetic resonance imaging we can map the tumor and find areas with high-risk behavior, “said prof. MUDr. Radim Jančálek, Ph.D. He added: “This would, of course, make it possible to improve the effectiveness of treatment, because we would be able to target surgery and radiation treatment directly to these risk areas.”
We congratulate Professor Mikulík and Professor Jančálek and their teams and thank them for representing our hospital and research center in the international scientific field.
