Renal Molecular Pathologist network Erasmus Project

Project Title

Renal Molecular Pathologist network

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Context/background of the project
The prevention and care of chronic diseases are among the priorities of the EU’s current health strategy. Chronic kidney disease (CKD), one of the most common chronic degenerative diseases, is often accompanied by high mortality and morbidity and has a high socio-economic impact. In particular, even if renal biopsy remains the “conditio sine qua non” for a correct diagnosis of renal disease, advances in scientific knowledge have helped characterize the pathogenetic mechanisms of a growing number of renal diseases at the molecular level. The current project addressed the need to uniform education and practices across Europe in order to establish the first official European Renal Molecular Pathology training course: high-quality, specific and advanced training course on nephrology which allows understanding the underlying molecular processes undetected using the current histopathological techniques.

Objectives
– to strengthen the cooperation among Universities in order to boost innovation and exchange of best practices
– to set-up a multidisciplinary and highly specialized training course in Nephrology, Renal Pathology and Molecular Medicine applied to Nephrology
– to train a new professional, the renal molecular pathologist (ReMaP), able to evaluate clinical, histopathological and molecular signatures of renal damage
– to develop an open-access e-learning course specifically designed to provide distance education to other physicians, pathologists and molecular biologists at European level

Number and profile of participating organizations:
The REMAP Consortium is composed of 6 academic institutions whose contact persons are members of the Immunonephrology Working Group (IWG) of the European Renal Association-European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA). They have already shared knowledge and competences to characterize renal diseases through the development of some collaborative projects namely 1) VALIGA (validation study of the new clinical and pathological classification of IgA nephropathy) and 2) the development of the ERA-EDTA database on recurrent glomerulonephritis after renal transplantation.
Some IWG board members with experience in performing renal biopsy (Drs Gesualdo’s, Tesar’s, Floege’s groups), in the interpretation of histological renal lesions (Drs Florquin’s group, Cannata’s group) and in systems biology (Drs Deltas’s and Gesualdo’s groups) have decided to propose, for the first time in the world, this educational project for the creation of a new professional profile: the renal molecular pathologist (REMAP). The scientific partners have been supported by 1 ICT company (GRIFO Multimedia), with long-lasting experience in the field of e-learning, and knowledge and content management, to develop an e-course containing both theory and practical exercises.

Project activities
11 trainees from 6 European countries attended the advanced training course. The partners (highly specialized nephrology clinical centers, renal pathology centers, and research units) carried out e-lectures and practical exercises on the following topics:
1) Clinical Nephrology (etiopathogenesis, diagnosis, prognosis, and management of acquired and inherited renal disease accompanied by the discussion of 50 clinical cases)
2) Digital Pathology (renal biopsies and their interpretation with a specific focus on the use of digital pathology to share opinions among experts accompanied by the discussion of 150 histopathological cases)
3) OMICS (use of high-throughput strategies namely genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to identify new panels of molecular markers useful for diagnosis, prognosis, and personalized therapy)
During the project lifetime, each trainee experienced 3 internships lasting 15 days each in different partner institutions in order to exchange clinical practices as well as laboratory protocols.
At the end of the course, REMAP consortium trained the first 11 European renal molecular pathologists as new professionals having outstanding experience in Clinical Nephrology, Digital Pathology, and Molecular Diagnostics applied to Nephrology. GRIFO Multimedia released a dedicated open access e-learning platform that provides high-quality educational material to learners worldwide.

Impact
Development of the open-access e-course for distance education at the global level
Acquisition of highly specialized knowledge of renal diseases and histopathology techniques
Acquisition of practical knowledge of renal diseases through the practical cases discussion
Acquisition of mastery in the use of techniques for the molecular analysis of the biological samples

Long-term benefits
– Consolidation of the role of the University as a generator of human resources of high profile through the creation of a new competitive professional profile at a global scale
– Strong commitment to institutionalize the REMAP training course as an Internationa Master

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 365237 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI BARI ALDO MORO & Country: IT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
• UNIVERZITA KARLOVA
• UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS
• INSTITUTO INVESTIGACION SANITARIA FUNDACION JIMENEZ DIAZ
• GRIFO MULTIMEDIA SRL
• UNIVERSITAETSKLINIKUM AACHEN