Pancreatic cancer is among the most dreaded: often with no early symptoms, it is diagnosed late and associated with an extremely poor prognosis. With the PACMAN project, supported by an ERC Proof of Concept Grant, Professor Thomas Baumert and his team are seeking to establish preclinical proof of concept for a new therapeutic approach.
An innovative therapy project
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the most frequent and aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. With a median survival of less than a year, even with treatment, the need for new therapies is urgent. Thanks to €150,000 in funding from the European Research Council (ERC), the PACMAN project will test the efficacy of an innovative therapeutic candidate in patient-derived models, a key step in accelerating the transition to clinical trials.
This new project is part of the close collaboration between Inserm, the University of Strasbourg, the University Hospitals of Strasbourg and the IHU Strasbourg to transform scientific discoveries into concrete innovations for the benefit of patients.
European funding: synonymous with excellence
Created by the European Union in 2007, the ERC is a prestigious and highly selective European program for funding excellent research projects in various categories. This is the fifth time in eight years that Thomas Baumert has been awarded funding, this time in the “ERC Proof of Concept Grant” category, which aims to accelerate the transfer of research work to applications.
Taurus Endoscopy, an IHU spin-off specializing in innovative solutions for unmet needs in flexible digestive endoscopy, announces that it has raised €2.5M in venture capital from the French fund MEDEVICE Capital and the U.S. fund Santé Ventures.
Taurus Endoscopy develops solutions for bleeding and flexible endoscopic gastrointestinal closure. At the heart of the technology is an implantable clip with an innovative design resulting from work carried out by the IHU Strasbourg innovation team. “This fundraising will allow Taurus Endoscopy to bring its first product, Taurus 1, to the market and to continue the development of pipeline products for closure in endoluminal interventions. At MEDEVICE, we are convinced that Taurus will be able to bring significant innovation to the market of endoscopic clips, therefore enhancing patient outcomes for the growing number of surgical procedures it addresses” said Cécile Real, Co-founder and CEO of MEDEVICE Capital.
The company was also a 2023 Grand Prix winner of the French national i-Lab competition, organized by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation in partnership with BPI France.
IHU Strasbourg Scientific Director and University of Strasbourg Professor, Nicolas Padoy, head of the CAMMA research team, has been awarded the prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant for his project entitled “Computational Methods to Analyse Intra-operative Adverse Events in Surgery at Scale (CompSURG).” The grant, worth 1.95 million euros, will fund his research over a span of five years. By bridging the fields of artificial intelligence and digital surgery, this ambitious project aims to improve surgical safety and, consequently, patient safety.
CompSURG aims to develop a novel computational methodology for analyzing intra-operative adverse events (IAEs) from surgical videos on a large scale. Currently, IAEs are under-reported, hindering their thorough analysis, the establishment of appropriate safety measures, and the development of intraoperative assistance systems to reduce their occurrence. Recent studies have shown that IAEs, while previously considered inconsequential, may in fact be indicative of serious complications and poor surgical outcomes.
Building on these findings, CompSURG will propose a radically new computational approach to improve intra-operative surgical safety, with a specific focus on automatic recognition and analysis of surgical activities and IAEs in endoscopic videos. This will involve developing novel cutting-edge computer vision and machine learning techniques to achieve groundbreaking models of the intricate interactions between surgical tools and anatomy, examine activity patterns and variability on a large scale, and identify critical steps requiring safety measures.
ERC Consolidator Grants are highly competitive awards bestowed upon outstanding researchers regardless of their nationality or age. The sole criterion for selection is scientific excellence. Recipients of the grant should have between seven and twelve years of post-doctoral experience and conduct their research in a public or private research organization located in an EU member state or associated country. The funding primarily supports the employment of researchers and staff to strengthen the recipients’ teams and is awarded for a maximum duration of five years.
The joint IHU – University of Strasbourg CAMMA research team led by Prof. Nicolas Padoy aims at developing new tools and methods based on computer vision, medical image analysis and machine learning to perceive, model, analyze and support clinician and staff activities in the operating room using the vast amount of digital data generated during surgeries. Nested in the IHU building, the team benefits from a unique infrastructure and eco-system with the university hospital and IRCAD.
IHU France welcomes this initiative by the French government to promote the unique model of excellence and acceleration of innovation in healthcare
On May 16, 2023, the French President announced the creation of 12 new University Hospital Institutes (IHUs) as part of the France Santé 2030 scheme. The Alliance IHU France, which brings together FOReSIGHT, IHU ICAN, IHU Strasbourg, Institut du Cerveau, Institut Imagine and Liryc, congratulates the newly appointed IHUs and welcomes this government initiative, which validates the strength of the IHU model by extending it to new medical and scientific themes. This reinforcement is part of a shared ambition for innovation and excellence in biomedical research in France.
IHU: accelerating innovation to invent the medicine of the future
Emblematic creations of the Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir (PIA), the IHUs have been given the mission of accelerating innovation in healthcare for the benefit of patients. The rejection of ivory towers, agility and the development of synergies have encouraged the emergence of excellent biomedical innovations and their transfer to the business world.
Created in 2011, the IHUs bring together research, care, development and training in a single location, and are now fully recognized as third-party experimentation centers. The IHUs have become major players in university hospital research, thanks to their scientific excellence, as demonstrated by their attractiveness for competitive research funding. They are also key partners for industrial companies involved in healthcare innovation.
In less than 10 years, the IHUs have achieved tangible results: over 320 patents filed, 18,000 scientific publications, 1,000 new clinical trials, 45 start-ups created, over 600 million euros in co-financing raised, and induced economic development in excess of 1 billion euros, while State investments represent 277 million euros*, i.e. a leverage effect of 5 to 7.
These new IHU and bioclusters will complement the fields of research already covered by the existing institutes: genetic, visual, cardiometabolic and nutritional diseases, central nervous system, cardiac rhythm, image-guided surgery and emerging infections.
IHU France is delighted to welcome the new IHUs:
VBHI, Bordeaux, cerebral vascular diseases, IHU
Prism, Villejuif, oncology, IHU
re-Connect, Paris, hearing disorders, IHU
Prometheus, Garches, sepsis, IHU
Thema-2, Paris, hematology, IHU
Cancers des femmes, Paris, gynecological cancers, IHU
Everest, Lyon, liver pathologies, IHU
RespirERA, Nice, respiratory pathologies, IHU
IMMUN4CURE, Montpellier, immunotherapies, IHU
InovAND, Paris, pediatric neurodevelopment, IHU
HealthAge, Toulouse, gerontology and aging, emerging IHU
IHU France is also delighted with the accreditation of 4 new bioclusters, in particular the Brain & Mind biocluster, which brings together three of the Alliance’s IHUs (Institut du Cerveau, Institut de la Vision and Institut Imagine) and two new ones accredited today (InovAND and re-Connect), and the GenoTher biocluster, of which Institut Imagine is a partner.
With the IHU, the French government aims to make France the leading European nation for innovation in healthcare, and to achieve nationally independence in healthcare.
The success of this new call for IHU projects illustrates the effectiveness of the model, now firmly anchored in the medical innovation ecosystem. With these 12 new IHUs, France now has a new capacity to accelerate and innovate in healthcare in priority areas such as complex data mining, personalized care pathway modeling, diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive simulation using digital twins, and disruptive innovations such as gene and cell therapies for patients. The aim of this combined expertise is to multiply diagnostic capabilities, medical and surgical decision support, and treatments.
The challenge now is to make IHU France a tool for meeting international demands and remaining as responsive and competitive as possible, so as to make France the leading European nation for innovation and achieve sovereignty in healthcare.
The Innovation Santé 2030 plan launched by the government was conceived precisely with this ambition, making a commitment in June 2021 to a strong, value-creating industry to bring, with the impetus of the Secrétariat Général pour l’Investissement (SGPI) and the Agence Innovation en Santé (AIS), direct, concrete solutions to patients and the medical community.
About IHU France
Emblematic creations of the “Investissements d’Avenir” program, the IHUs have been given the mission of integrating and accelerating the action processes of hospital and university research, to disseminate biomedical innovations more rapidly to patients and the economic fabric. IHU France brings together the 6 IHUs: FOReSIGHT, ICM (Institut du Cerveau), IHU ICAN, IHU Strasbourg, Imagine (Institut des maladies génétiques) and Liryc (L’institut des maladies du rythme cardiaque), which combine their strengths, initiatives and proposals to accelerate medical innovation in France. The IHUs have demonstrated́ the power of a model of excellence bringing together in a single location all the expertise that enables medical research to be transformed into innovation for the benefit of patients.
* In 2018, the FOReSIGHT IHU was awarded €50 million in funding under the PIA 3 IHU call for projects. In 2019, the 5 other IHUs in the Alliance IHU France were awarded a further 63 million euros.
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IHU Strasbourg Scientific Director and University of Strasbourg Professor, Nicolas Padoy, head of the CAMMA research team, has been awarded the prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant for his project entitled “Computational Methods to Analyse Intra-operative Adverse Events in Surgery at Scale (CompSURG).” The grant, worth 1.95 million euros, will fund his research over a span of five years. By bridging the fields of artificial intelligence and digital surgery, this ambitious project aims to improve surgical safety and, consequently, patient safety.
ERC Consolidator Grants
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