SPARK-BIH and the Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure joined forces in 2020 to identify translational projects from the NeuroCure community. In the first call, four teams have been selected to be funded by NeuroCure and supported by SPARK-BIH.
After the successful implementation of the program, NeuroCure and SPARK-BIH prolong their collaboration and will run a second call for projects. The call for proposals will open end of May in which teams around NeuroCure-PIs can apply for funding of up to 50 000€ provided by NeuroCure as well as for mentoring and support from the SPARK Team and the large network of translational experts from SPARK-BIH.
Currently supported NeuroCure Teams:
Team NEMATIS (Neuronal Mapping using Transcranial Magnetic Temporal Interference Stimulation) — with Khaled Nasr, Prof. Dr. Surjo Soekadar and Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Heinz — is developing a medical device that will enable non-invasive, precise stimulation capable of reaching deeper areas of the brain.
Prof. Dr. Volker Haucke’s project XL-MyoCure (Novel therapy for neuromuscular disease caused by mutations in myotubularins), is to develop a new pharmacological therapy for a rare neuromuscular disease.
The iPSC-SYNGAP team (Prof. Dr. Dietmar Schmitz, Prof. Dr. Markus Schülke-Gerstenfeld, Prof. Dr. Sarah Shoichet, Dr. Nils Rademacher, and Judith von Sivers) is developing a new treatment for patients with SYNGAP syndrome — a genetic disease in which patients can suffer up to 140 epileptic seizures per day.
The aim of BENEFIT (Biomarkers for tumor immune therapy associated neurological side effects) — with Prof. Dr. Matthias Endres, PD Dr. Wolfgang Böhmerle, Dr. Samuel Knauß, Dr. Leonie Müller-Jensen and PD Dr. Petra Hühnchen — is to identify biomarkers for the occurrence of neuronal side effects in immune checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy.
