TAILORED-Treatment project to increase effectiveness of antibiotics receives EU funding

Nov 14 2013

The European Union has funded a 4 year project called TAILORED-Treatment with € 6.000.000,-. The main goal of TAILORED -Treatment is to establish a strategy that can be used to increase the effectiveness of antibiotic treatment, reduce any potential side-effects of therapy, and help limit the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in hospitalized children and adults. The project will be coordinated by Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

In the past 70 years, antibiotics have been one of the most important weapons against infectious diseases, Now, unfortunately, antibiotics are the most misused drugs in the world. This misuse has led to the development of a wide range of antibiotic resistances, which now represents one of the major threats to global health.

At the heart of the TAILORED-Treatment project is a clinical study involving hospitalized patients with respiratory tract and/or bloodstream infections, including both children and adults. State-of-the-art diagnostic techniques will be utilised to generate transcriptomic, proteomic, genomic and microbiome data that will be assembled into a single database. This database will then be used to identify novel interactions that characterize both patients and their infections, in order to discover new biological markers of infection and to develop new computer tools that will enable clinicians to better tailor antimicrobial therapy to the individual patient.

One major factor in helping prevent the development and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria is appropriate antibiotic treatment that is tailored to the pathogen (if any) actually causing disease. However, one of the major problems facing clinicians is deciding which (if any) antibiotic therapy should be prescribed in the 12 to 48 hour period before the causative agent of an infection is identified. Further, patients may die if they are prescribed incorrect antibiotic therapy or if no antibiotic therapy is given. On the other hand, the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, for example in treating viral and fungal infections that do not respond to antibiotics, may lead to the development of antimicrobial resistance, as well as the development of unnecessary side-effects. A method to help clinicians tailor antimicrobial prescribing to individual patients would help reduce the development of antimicrobial resistance and help prevent any unwanted side-effects associated with unnecessary treatment.

TAILORED-Treatment is funded by the EU under the Framework Programme 7 for Health research and coordinated by Erasmus MC (the Netherlands). Partners in the project are: Hadassah Medical Organization (Israel),  University Medical Center Utrecht (The Netherlands),  MeMed Diagnostics Ltd (Israel),  University of Gothenburg  (Sweden), Noray Bioinformatics S.L. (Spain), Ibexperts Ltd (Israel).

EU Grant Agreement No.: HEALTH-F3-602860-2013

Source Erasmus MC