Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, September 10, 2012. – The use of nanotechnology in medicine holds the potential to essentially improve diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of disease activity. From 3 to 5 September the partners of the EC-funded collaborative project “NanoDiaRA”, who work on the development of diagnostic tools for the early detection and response to treatment of arthritis based on nanoparticle technologies, met in Nijmegen, home of NanoDiaRA partner Radboud University, for their 6th scientific meeting.
The scientists took the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting for discussing near future plans in the three main parts of the project: development of suitable nanoparticles, contrast agent usage for MRI technology and biomarker development. On the basis of these discussions timelines and action plans were made in order to fulfill the projects’ tight schedule for the next 18 months and to exploit the available resources efficiently. Next to the technical and scientific aspects the ethical and social implications of the use of nanoparticles for an early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis were addressed as well and future strategies to successfully continue on the respective workpackage were discussed. The Board meetings covered scientific decisions as well as administrative, legal and ethical aspects.
The NanoDiaRA Consortium was very happy to welcome EC representatives who had been invited to evaluate the current state of the project in a one-day evaluation meeting in which the project members presented the different aspects of their work.
On the third day, the young investigators of the project – Ph.D. students, postdocs and other co-workers – had the chance to come together in a separate meeting and to present their results on how to proceed during the next 18 months in a common session. The characteristic of bringing together not only principle investigators but also their involved young investigators made this meeting once again a perfect opportunity to compare notes from different angles.