Title of Project

„Health virtual twins for the personalised management of stroke related to atrial fibrillation”

Cod Proiect

101136244 —HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05

Nr Contract

8390265/07.12.2023

Acronim

TARGET

Project Duration

60 months

Total budget value/UMFST

185.000,00 Euro –

Funding

Horizon Europe

Purpose and planning

WP1 – Coordination and management. Start month M1, End month M60.

WP2 – Stakeholder involvement and engagement. Start month M1, End month M60.

WP3 Data integration and sharing. Start month M1, End month M60.

WP4 Virtual twin development. Start month M1, End month M60.

WP5 Risk prediction modelling of AF and AFRS in the virtual twin [Pillar I]. Start month M1, End month M60.

WP6 Diagnosis and early management modelling of AFRS in the virtual twin [Pillar II]. Start month M1, End month M60.

WP7 Modelling rehabilitation needs in the virtual twin of AFRS patients [Pillar III]. Start month M1, End month M60.

WP8 Clinical studies and in-silico trials. Start month M1, End month M60.

WP9 Dissemination, communication, and exploitation. Start month M1, End month M60.

Main objectives

The aim of the TARGET project is to accelerate translational research for the personalised management of the AF-related stroke pathway, starting from the healthy state, pathophysiology and disease onset, progression, treatment and recovery. For this, TARGET will develop integrated, multi-scale computational models (virtual twins) and tools.

Specific Objectives (SO):

-SO1: To assess the needs, understanding, and engagement with health virtual twin models and tools, to examine the potential barriers to their acceptance, and promote their adoption.

-SO2: To develop multi-scale and multi-organ, dynamic, and interoperable virtual twins of AF and AFRS patients to accelerate translational research, enabling personalised and cost-effective management and rehabilitation of stroke patients.

SO3. To develop and validate personalised virtual twin models for the dynamic risk prediction related to the underlying pathophysiology of AF and AFRS based on established and novel predisposing factors.

SO4. To develop and validate personalised virtual twin models for diagnosis and management of AFRS, including treatment optimisation and prediction of functional outcomes and mortality.

SO5. To develop and validate a personalised virtual twin model for rehabilitation to dynamically assess and predict outcomes in post-acute AFRS patients, focusing on functional outcomes, and individual treatment responses.

SO6. To assess the developed virtual twin models for the AFRS pathway in a clinical trial simulation (virtual/in-silico trial) and evaluate the impact of their use in a clinical application versus standard of care.

SO7. To develop decision support tools for the AFRS pathway and a platform for data integration and sharing.

SO8. To actively engage with the scientific community, disseminate the results to relevant stakeholders and maximise the exploitation of TARGET’s outputs.

Results

-High level of acceptance and engagement with the virtual twin models and decision support tools for AF and stroke.

-Development of multi-organ, multi-scale virtual twins that simulate the individual patient pathophysiology.

-Development of personalised virtual twin models for dynamic risk prediction of AF and AFRS that consider the patient individual characteristics and medical and health status history.

-Development of personalised virtual twin models for diagnosis and management, e.g., resumption of anticoagulation.

-Development of personalised virtual twin models to identify rehabilitation needs and predict functional outcomes in post-acute AFRS patients.

-Simulation of an in-silico trial, including selected interventions, to demonstrate outcome improvement when using the developed virtual twin models for the AFRS pathway in the in-silico clinical trial compared to standard-of-care.

-Five decision support tools and centralised data platform, developed and operational.

-Publishing and presenting TARGET’s results in highly reputed scientific journals (>30 scientific papers in Q1 journals) and conferences (>80 oral or poster presentations).

Participants

1 – LU; 2 – URV;3 – IMIM;4 – VUB;5 – RI;6 – INPT;6.1 – UPS;7 – SRL;8 – UMFST;9 – Isansys;10 – RUMC;11 – TUW;12 – SHS;13 – MOVERIM;14 – CERTH;15 – LUHFT;16 – A-A;17 – LHCH;18 – UoL

Partener institution

George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology of Targu Mures

Team:

Name

Role

Prof. Benedek Theodora

Project manager

Prof. Benedek Imre

Experienced researcher

Conf. Florin Grosu

Experienced researcher

Dr. Rat Nora

Experienced researcher

Dr. Ioana Rodean

Postdoc

Dr. Gerculy Renata

Postdoc

Dr. Rosca Aurelian

PhD student

Dr. Theofana Mihăilă

PhD student

Dr. Blindu Emanuel

PhD student

Mașca Violeta

PhD student

Liliana Cojocariu

Master student

Results