This call han been published by Spoke 5: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. - The available budget for this call was of EUR 200'000.00.
Support during collection of Applications and Evaluations is provided by the INF-ACT Foundation.
Influenza is a widespread acute respiratory disease and represents a serious public health problem, so much so that it weighs on the company both in terms of direct costs (treatments, hospitalizations in the most severe cases) and indirect costs (lost working days, loss of productivity associated with it), and for complications in fragile subjects. The flu has viral origin and spreads easily between people by air, circulates throughout the world and can affect any individual of any age.
The main characteristics of the virus is its high mutagenic capacity, through the antigenic variability in the two glycoproteins HA and NA: it is precisely through this mechanism that the virus evades the immune response of the host organism.
When a completely new strain of influenza appears, capable of transmitting rapidly from human to human on a large scale, a pandemic can occur. Influenza type A has been responsible for 4 major pandemics in the last 100 years and is considered one of the viruses at greatest risk of spillover from animal reservoirs. WHO data indicates that annual epidemics worldwide cause around one billion cases of influenza, three to five million cases of serious illness and 290'000 to 650'000 deaths.
The European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) estimates that every year in Europe, 4 to 50 million symptomatic cases of influenza occur and that 15'000/70'000 European citizens die each year from causes associated with influenza.
The clinical burden of influenza goes beyond common respiratory complications: there is an association between influenza syndrome and cardiovascular events such as heart attack, heart failure and stroke. The only antivirals recommended for the treatment and prevention of human influenza caused by AH1N1 viruses are oseltamivir (marketed under the name Tamiflu®) and zanamivir (Relenza®). Other antiviral drugs that have been in use for a much longer time such as amantadine and rimantadine are no longer effective as influenza viruses have developed resistance to them.
Projects responding to this call should aim to identify new chemical entities capable of counteracting entry by endocytosis mediated by the interaction between the HA protein of the virus and the sialic acid cellular receptor and/or the replication and multiplication of the virus in the infected cell.
Expected Results:
The call text (in Italian) was published on the CNR website.
Collection of applications started at 12:00 PM on May 7, 2024 and closed at 12:00 PM on June 10, 2024
Evaluations are currently in progress
Proposals are being evaluated on the basis of the following evaluation criteria:
Proposals will be considered admissible for financing if they obtain at least 70 out of 100 points. Evaluation will be carried out by a panel of 3-5 international and highly-qualified scientists, who are not directly involved in the INF-ACT Research Program. Reviewers will sign a declaration to exclude possible conflicts of interest before accessing the scientific proposals to be evaluated.
INF-ACT partner institutions involved: CNR
INF-ACT Research Nodes involved: RN5
Tags: Research, Grants, Cascade Open Calls
Last update: 11/06/2024
INF-ACT is a Participated Foundation (Fondazione di Partecipazione)
Codice Fiscale 96084470184 - Partiva IVA 02894510185
Address: Corso Strada Nuova, 65 - 27100 Pavia (Italy)
Contact e-mail: management@inf-act.it - PEC: inf-act@pec.it
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The INF-ACT Foundation is the Hub of the a project funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3 - Call for tender No. 341 of 15 March 2022 of Italian Ministry of University and Research funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU; Project code PE00000007, Concession Decree No. 1554 of 11 October 2022 adopted by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, Project title "One Health Basic and Translational Actions Addressing Unmet Needs on Emerging Infectious Diseases (INF-ACT)".