Grant for sepsis research

NWO's Open Competition ENW-XL provides 21 research consortia with an opportunity to make a breakthrough in groundbreaking fundamental research projects. A total of 64 million euros has been awarded, with one to three million allocated to each project. One of the projects has been assigned to a consortium led by Mihai Netea of the Radboudumc.

Project Mihai Netea: HEAL-SEPSIS: a systems immunology approach for nanomedicine to heal sepsis and its long-term complications
Co-applicants: Peter Pickkers; Yang Li; Roy van der Meel
Severe infections are sometimes complicated by complex imbalances in the way that the immune system of the patient reacts to the microbe: sometimes too strongly, and sometimes not powerful enough. The way that we should treat these infections thus depends on the type of immune regulation in each particular patient. This program will investigate how to identify the precise type of immune imbalance in each patient with a severe infection, and how to adjust the treatment in order to re-balance the host defence and improve the outcome of the patient.

Big step

NWO's Open Competition ENW-XL offers research consortia the opportunity to take a big step in curiosity-driven basic science research. Jan de Boer, chair of NWO’s Science (ENW) domain: ‘Within the Science domain, the Open Competition ENW-XL is the only instrument for fundamental collaboration. After all, we are too small to compete with each other, so we will have to cooperate and join forces. Only then can we put new topics on the map.'
 

The value of fundamental research
With this funding, it’s up to the researchers to start, strengthen or expand groundbreaking and innovative world-class research lines together. Karen Aardal, board member of the NWO domain Science (ENW): 'Many of the results of fundamental research eventually end up in society. You just don't know in advance how and when. Think of fundamental mathematical research, much of that is eventually reflected in logistics. Without fundamental research, there is no foundation to build on.'

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