Among the greatest medical challenges to global health are infectious and inflammatory diseases and immune system disorders that affect the entire human body. The processes are not well understood scientifically, leading to frequent treatment failures. EMTHERA (Emerging Therapeutics) is looking for new approaches to researching these diseases and developing novel therapies. In doing so, the scientists are focusing on mRNA-based forms of delivery, on active substances that specifically degrade disease-relevant proteins and on computer-assisted and nanotechnological applications.

EMTHERA is an integrative Excellence Cluster initiative of the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, with participation of FIAS. EMTHERA will bring together interdisciplinary basic and clinical scientists to break frontiers in the areas of infections, inflammation, and immunity and will develop novel strategies and new classes of therapeutics targeting the identified mechanisms. With this program, it tackles some of the biggest challenges in biomedical research with high relevance to society. More details can be found here.

In this Cluster o Excellence  initiative, FIAS Fellows and researchers Venkata Satagopam and Robert Covino are playing active rolea in the technology hub "Computational biomedicine", which will envision federated clinical and translational data management and analysis solutions by strictly following General Data Protection Regulation, data privacy and security as well as applying state-of-the-art AI/machine learning methods. In addition and together with other involved consortium member, FIAS will develop clinical disease maps within one of the two bridge projects to study disease mechanisms and co-morbidities.