The collaboration consists of seven Brno institutes and international experts. Together, they aim to improve the diagnosis and treatment of strokes, with each institute playing a vital role in the process. In terms of its size and scope, the research cluster is unmatched in Central and Eastern Europe. Photo credit: KK / Brno Daily.
Brno, Aug 7 (BD) – Strokes, alongside heart disease and cancer, are the leading cause of death worldwide, affecting more than 17 million people annually, and are the most common cause of permanent disability in adults. In the Czech Republic, strokes affect more than 25,000 people a year, with almost 10,000 deaths, according to St. Anne’s Hospital in Brno.
Research into the diagnosis and treatment of strokes should now become more comprehensive, however, thanks to a unique newly-established research cluster: STROKE BRNO. The cluster is interdisciplinary, and aims to connect the knowledge and expertise of academic and industrial partners and ensure the effective use of knowledge from basic research in clinical practice.
“Each institution in this platform has its irreplaceable role and we operate as one team. If a new idea arises, colleagues from the Academy of Sciences will perform tests on models of the human brain printed on a 3D printer, and experts from the Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine can test the substances on animal models,” said Professor Jiří Damborský, head of Loschmidt Laboratories at Masaryk University, one of the members of the new cluster.
The STROKE BRNO cluster is mainly focused on developing new drugs, biopharmaceuticals and nanosystems for the diagnosis and treatment of strokes, as well as new diagnostic procedures and prognoses for strokes, so that the results of their research “will have a positive impact on patient treatment in the future.”
The cluster is the result of five years of cooperation and a clear need for treatment. “This [need for treatment] motivated us to gradually contact more and more institutions,” said neurologist Robert Mikulík, the initiator of the cluster and the head of the Cerebrovascular Research Program at the International Clinical Research Center at St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno, as quoted by Seznam Zprávy.
The project is the largest research cluster for the treatment of strokes in Central and Eastern Europe. How long the project will continue before they reach their goal is uncertain. “It’s a relatively unexplored journey. It is not a matter of several years, but rather ten years. If we reach the goal in ten years, it will be a great success,” added Mikulík.
Members of the cluster include seven Brno institutes: The International Clinical Research Center of St. Anne’s University Hospital Brno (FNUSA-ICRC), Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Loschmidt Laboratories of the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University and FNUSA-ICRC, Institute of Scientific Instruments of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Veterinary Research Institute, Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute and BioVendor Research & Diagnostic Products company. Experts from the Vall d’Hebron Institute in Barcelona, the Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea, and the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, are also collaborating with the cluster.
