Home > Granted research > 2020 – 12th Call for Projects: Selected Projects

The Thierry Latran Foundation 12th Call for projects  opened in December 2019

The Thierry Latran Foundation was established in 2008 to a) finance basic, applied and clinical research with potential therapeutic benefit in sporadic ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and b) to support academic and industrial scientific research efforts in Europe to cure this disease.

The Foundation has enabled to reach significant milestones in terms of understanding the disease mechanisms and developments. After having paved the way for so much progress, the Foundation will focus this new Call on validating promising therapeutic targets.

The Thierry Latran Foundation  opened  its 12th call for projects for a total amount up to € 800 000.

Scientific themes were  

Applicants are encouraged to submit projects that bring results closer to therapeutic or diagnostic valorisation.

Eligibility criteria were

  • Researcher with a position within an institution for the duration of the project
  • with a position within an institution for the duration of the project
  • Teams based in EU-member states or in a country belonging to the Horizon 2020 Third Country Agreements (Iceland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Israel, Moldova, Switzerland, Faroe Islands, Ukraine, Tunisia, Georgia, Armenia
  • Teams based in EU-member states or in a country belonging to the Horizon 2020 Third Country Agreements (Iceland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Israel, Moldova, Switzerland, Faroe Islands, Ukraine, Tunisia, Georgia, Armenia)
  • Applications involving a single or several European research teams
  • Applications from public, private and for-profit institutions
  • Compliance to Thierry Latran Foundation call for project policy
  • Principal Investigator can reapply for funding in the year he has to present the final report

We received 70 abstracts coming from 15 different countries

 Since inception, 922 projects were submitted to the Foundation.

 Selection process:

Each Member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), assessed independently the abstracts taking into account their scientific quality and their relevance to the objectives of the Foundation. During the process, the members of the Scientific Committee with a conflict of interest did participate neither to assessment nor to discussion.

These assessments have been consolidated and anonymized. A meeting of the Scientific Committee was held in February 2020 for selection, validated by the Foundation. 9 projects were selected for full application. One researcher couldn’t complete the full application due to CoViD.

Each of the 8 projects was analyzed by 2 different ‘referees’, specialized on the theme of the project and having no connection with the applicants.  The members of the Scientific Committee met virtually in June to assess the projects on the basis of the opinion of the “referees” and to classify them into 3 groups A (strong recommendation for funding) B (projects recommended to be financed according to the available budget) and C (projects not recommended for funding). The SAB’s recommendations were presented to the Executive Committee in June 2020.

At the end of the process four projects were selected, meeting the selection criteria i.e. scientific excellence and contribution to the development of a diagnostic tool or a therapy for a total amount of 800 00 Euros. A 5th project granted  200,000 Euros is appproved. This project was selected during the 2019 Call for Projects 2019 put on hold until additional funding was secured.

In total  1 million euros are allocated to research. 

Project 1 : C9-inflam :  Dieter Edbauer, Munich site of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Germany

1. C9-inflam

Project 2: Axon ALS, Jonathan Gilthorpe, Umeå University, Sweden.

2. HypothALS

Project 3 : FIB-ALS, Sebastian Lewandowski, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. 

3. FIB-ALS

Project 4 : SILK-ALS, Markus Otto, Ulm University, Germany.

4. SILK-ALS

Project 5 : PRELUDE, Michael A. van Es, UMC Utrecht, The Netherlands.

5. PRELUDE

 

The Thierry Latran Foundation is extremely grateful  to the Scientific Advisory Board who performed the selection

Pr Albert Ludolph (Ulm University, Germany) (President)

Dr Séverine Boillée (Brain and Spine Institute, ICM, Paris, France)

Pr Adriano Chio (University of Torino, Italy)  

Dr Jan Egebjerg (Lundbeck Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark)

Pr Linda Greensmith (University College of London, UK)

Pr Eva Hedlund (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden)

Pr Philip Van Damme (KU Leuven, Belgium)

and to Elke Bogaert , SAB secretary  who drove the process.