ASCLEPIUS is a consortium with four members from four countries around Europe. George Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology from Georgia (Eliava), France's l’Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement (INRAE), Portugal's Universidade do Minho (UMinho), and Luxembourg's Intelligentsia Consultants Sarl (INT) cooperate in this three-year project.
Consortium members
Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology
Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology (Eliava) is a research institution founded in 1923. The institute is currently operating under the authority of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia. Eliava has decades long extensive experience in microbiological and bacteriological characterization of phages and their hosts. Eliava is also the keeper of one of the World’s richest and most diverse collections of therapeutic phages and clinical bacterial strains.
ASCLEPIUS aims to enhance the scientific excellence and innovation capacity of G. Eliava Institute and its esteemed twinning partners. The research component of the project aims at deepening our understanding of phage therapy. Phage therapy, or treatment with bacteriophages, is a field, which heavily relies on the rich historical experience of Eliava Institute. Scientists of Eliava institute are experts in the fields of phage biology and phage therapy. Eliava institute houses a large collection of clinical bacterial strains and therapeutic phages.
Experienced and junior researchers from four laboratories of Eliava institute participate in the project.
Visit Eliava Institute web page for more information about the organisation: https://eliava-institute.org/en.
l’Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement
l’Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement (INRAE) is France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment. It uses research, innovation, and support for public policies as tools to guide the emergence of sustainable agricultural and food production systems. INRAE aims to carry out science dedicated to life, humans, and the Earth that uncovers solutions to our most pressing concerns.
One of INRAE’s research units is the Micalis Department, a large structure organized into 23 research teams and gathers 350 scientists. Micalis is dedicated to research in microbiology for food and health, with a wide range of competences in microbiology, immunity, chemistry, mass spectroscopy, microscopy, microfluidics, germ free animal models, and all facilities to study strict anaerobes as well as pathogens.
Dr. Marie-Agnès Petit is a senior research director at INRAE, in the Micalis department, where she has been leading the Phage research team for the last 12 years. In this team, in silico and wet lab approaches are combined to characterize phages at the molecular level, understand their capacity of evolution, and appreciate their impact on different microbial ecosystems. Scientists of this team are highly skillful bioinformaticians with a strong focus on state-of-the-art bioinformatics applications for phage genome assemblies and annotations. Learn more about the Bacteriophage genome dynamics team (DynPhage) led by Marie-Agnes Petit here: https://www.micalis.fr/equipe/dynphages/. Visit INRAE web page for more information about the organisation: https://www.inrae.fr/en
University of Minho
Universidade do Minho (UMinho) is a Research University in Portugal, focused on regional, national and international socioeconomic environment, and invested in growing the Knowledge RD&I chain, namely through IP management.
UMinho’s Centre of Biological Engineering (CEB) is focused on research for Biotechnology and Bioengineering in Industry, Food, Environment and Health. Since 2021, CEB joined LABBELS, the new Associate Laboratory on Biotechnology, Bioengineering and Microelectromechanical Systems, granted by FCT for the next 10 years.
Dr. Joana Azeredo is an Associate Professor who leads the Biofilm Science and Technology Research Group in CEB. She is also a member of CEB’s direction board and a member of the Executive Committee of the ESCMID Biofilm Group. Her current research focuses on interaction of bacteriophages with biofilms and development of bacteriophage based biotechnological applications for pathogens detection and control. She and her team have developed pioneer studies on the characterization of the interaction of bacteriophages with biofilms and have isolated and sequenced several new bacteriophages.
Researchers of the group of Dr. Joana Azeredo have a deep understanding of phage/biofilm interactions. As part of the project, university’s imaging facility will also be made available. Learn more about the group of Prof. Joana Azeredo here: https://www.ceb.uminho.pt/bsteg. Visit University web page for more information: https://www.uminho.pt/EN.
Intelligentsia Consultants sarl
INT is a team of expert managers and trainers specializing in project management, proposal writing, scientific dissemination, communication, and research-related intellectual property (IP) issues. Intelligentsia is a member of the Association of European Science and technology Transfer Professionals (ASTP) with the company’s employees also members of the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators (EARMA) and Institute of Physics (IOP). Since 2009, Intelligentsia has coordinated or supported over fifty (50) FP7, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects. Several such projects have involved Georgian research institutes in the development of centres of excellence, integration into ERA, and technology transfer, in the fields of agrifood, nanomaterials and sensors e.g. FP7 NANOMAT-EPC – evaluated “excellent”, FP7 SENS-ERA , FP7 SUAFRI-EPC. Notably, the company has helped to implement four Twinning projects evaluated "exceptional" in the EC's final reviews: ASCIMAT (2016-2018), TUTORIAL (2016-2018), DRIVEN (2018-2022) and MaNaCa (2019-2023).