CA16122 - Biomaterials and advanced physical techniques for regenerative cardiology and neurology (BIONECA)

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the western world. A progressively ageing population is increasingly affected by neurological diseases, which brings a negative impact on European economies with more than 1 billion euros cost of patients rehabilitation per year. Faced with too slow and expensive progress in development of new therapies, new approaches to discover therapeutic protocols are urgently needed. One of the most promising strategies is based on stem cells application for cardiovascular and neurologic diseases and on the employment of biomaterials for supporting cultivation and integration of stem cells in disease-affected tissue. However, considering the tremendous amount of completely new data and a very wide spectrum of stem cells applications, there is the problem of unnecessary multiplication of experiments and redundancy in fragmented European centres. Thus, the regenerative medicine, as the youngest biomedical field, requires a harmonized multidisciplinary approach involving urgent coordinated action among stem cell and adjoined experts. The main aim of BIONECA project is to establish the platform for coordinated interaction among top-level scientists of the following scientific disciplines: regenerative cardiology, regenerative neurology, stem cell biology, physics, chemistry, material science, material engineering, rapid prototyping, computational modelling and advanced imaging technologies. This interdisciplinary approach is highly needed at this moment and it can be obtained exclusively through the COST networking tool. BIONECA aims to become the most effective instrument in coordination, harmonization and defragmentation of the stem cell research across Europe, bringing unification of protocols for application of stem cells for neurological and cardiovascular diseases.