A total of €100 million in funding has been allocated to eight new research projects in the Netherlands by the Centre for Translational Molecular Medicine (CTMM).
Based at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven and funded 50% by the Dutch government, 25% by academia and 25% by industry, the CTMM is a public-private partnership committed to the development of molecular medicine technologies for the early diagnosis and personalised treatment of cancer and cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and infectious diseases.
The focus is firmly on the translational aspects of molecular medicine, so that any new advances can be moved into clinical practice as quickly as possible. Operating through an open-call procedure, the CTMM invites, assesses and funds multidisciplinary projects involving active participation by Netherlands-based academia and industry.
Around a year ago, the CTMM awarded grants totalling €150 million for nine research projects targeting the most prevalent diseases in the cardiovascular, cancer and neurodegenerative categories.
The projects approved in the second funding round are directed at cancer as well as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and infectious diseases, in line with the Centre’s original business plan. They also include development programmes for innovative new platform technologies, such as medical imaging techniques, that can be applied across a broad spectrum of the target diseases.
“The need for broad-based technology platforms in translational molecular medicine is underlined by the fact that all three technical universities that make up the Netherlands’ 3TU Federation (Delft, Eindhoven and Twente) are now involved in the CTMM,” the Centre noted.
Each of the eight new projects is being undertaken by a consortium of clinical and industrial partners, including 13 leading university medical centres and research institutes, 29 small and medium-sized enterprises, and 15 major industrial players.
