ICPerMed Training on Research Infrastructures in Personalised Medicine

27 September 2023 – The third ICPerMed Training ‘Research Infrastructures in Personalised Medicine: use, advantages and challenges’ took place on 22 September 2023. More than 90 participants from around the world participated virtually in this fruitful event.

The aim of this training was the promotion of the use of European Research Infrastructures in the biomedical field to better inform researchers on the potential use of Biological and Medical Research Infrastructures and the benefits arising from their use, to accelerate excellence, innovation and translation, but also make them aware of the barriers to be overcome.

The training has been divided into four sessions covering different aspects of the most popular European Research Infrastructures focused on Personalised Medicine and their use. 

In the first session, representatives of EATRIS, ECRIN, ELIXIR and BBMRI presented an overview of their infrastructures, their importance and the benefits arising from their use. 

In the second session, the same infrastructures were thoroughly investigated and their functioning and available tools were illustrated.  

The third session was focused on the issues and barriers to be overcome when using a RI. Particularly, the interventions were about the reproducibility and quality of the data, the regulatory eco-system, the financial aspects of the RIs and, finally, a Q&A session gave space to the attendants’ questions about the topic, previously collected during the registration phase.

The fourth session was aimed at presenting examples of concrete use of RIs in Research Projects. 
The sessions were chaired and moderated by leading experts in the field: 

  • Jens Habermann, Director General at BBMRI
  • Saba Abdulghani, Head of Biobanking Development at BBMRI
  • Eva Garcia Alzarez, IT Scientist and project manager at BBMRI
  • Toni Andreu, Scientific Director at EATRIS
  • Maria Laura Garcia Bramejo, National Director at EATRIS Spain
  • Jacques Demotes, Director General and Founder at ECRIN 
  • Serena Scollen, Head of Human Genomics and Translational Data at ELIXIR
  • Sergio Crovella, Professor at the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences of Qatar University

This online training was one of several activities of ICPerMed in order to support research and implementation of PM in Europe and beyond.