One year has passed since the official launch of REPO4EU back on the 1st of September 2022, where all 28 partners met in Maastricht to kick-off the project and lay out the foundations for the upcoming 7 years.
To celebrate the occasion and mark the achievements of our first year working together, we spoke with our Project Coordinator, Prof. Harald Schmidt, to get some first-hand insights into the developments of the past 12 months.
What have we achieved in this first year of REPO4EU?
It’s an honor, and also a big responsibility, to be leading this giant project supported by the European Union, where we’re bringing together scientists and stakeholders from all fields, including bioinformatics, biomedicine, clinicians, patent attorneys and many more; and also, very importantly, to be actively engaging patients in our conversations.
One of the biggest achievements of this year is the development of our online, open access and totally free platform called Drug Repurposing Central — a publishing and communication platform developed in collaboration with ScienceOpen for the whole drug repurposing community.
Drug repurposing is a giant movement spanning medicine worldwide, which is why building a global-reaching community is one of the main objectives for REPO4EU. This year alone, we’ve expanded across Europe but we’re also reaching into Australia, Asia and the Americas, collaborating hand-in-hand with peers and organisations whose work also focuses on advancing patient-centric and precise drug repurposing. Check out who has joined our community so far!
What’s next for REPO4EU?
With our project being centered around exploring the latest technologies for mechanism-based drug repurposing, our research and conversations revolve around using drugs that are already on the market for new indications, always having patients’ needs at the forefront. For this, we’re using the most modern methods of bioinformatics to not only redefine diseases, but to also make sure we’re curing patients — instead of simply treating their symptoms.
After the hard work of this first year, we’re now in the process of preparing the first clinical trials, which will set the path for our upcoming and continuous research into drug repurposing using Machine Learning and other AI-powered tools. Thanks to our recently completed deliverables, we will now also be able to start developing new methods and tools that will become available for colleagues and researchers working within the context of drug repurposing.
Our most exciting plan coming up soon is RExPO23, the second installment in our series of international conferences dedicated to Systems Medicine, AI and Drug Repurposing. This year, we’re going bigger, better and bolder! Those interested in joining us in Stockholm on 25-26 October 2023, can book their tickets now. I hope to see you there!
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Big thanks to all 28 partners in the REPO4EU consortium for their work so far. Here’s to continuing our mission to move from imprecise drug therapy to precision medicine!