The Department of Biomedical Research of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology – Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH-IMBB-BR) participates in the SMARTool project funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program with approximately € 5 M. The project started on January 2016 and is currently on month 37, from a total duration of 42 months.

Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe and worldwide due to major acute atherothrombotic events which account each year for about 2 million deaths at a cost to the EU of almost €196 billion. These events represent the first evidence of coronary disease and are caused both by local factors (high risk plaques) and individual systemic factors, where patient could develop disease in relation to a specific phenotypic (anomalous inflammatory/thrombogenic/lipidic pathways) or genetic profile.

SMARTool targets the development of a cloud based platform for the management of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) by standardizing and integrating heterogeneous health data. The platform includes existing multiscale and multilevel models of coronary plaque progression based on non-invasive coronary CT angiography (CCTA), refined by heterogeneous patient-specific non-imaging data (history, lifestyle, exposome, biohumoral data, genotyping) and cellular/molecular markers.

The key elements of the developed within the project beyond of the state of the art clinical decision support tool include: (i) Patient-specific CAD stratification. A machine learning based risk stratification model is implemented by patient genotyping and phenotyping (ii) Patient-specific CAD diagnosis. CAD diagnosis is based on semi-automate 3D arterial reconstruction and non-invasive FFR

measurement. (iii) CAD prognosis decision support. Models of site specific plaque growth and prediction are implemented for the prediction of regions prone to plaque growth. (iv) Treatment decision support. A virtual angioplasty tool is developed. (v) Point-of-care testing. A microfluidic device is developed for on-chip blood analysis usable in Clinical Decision Support.

Eleven public and private partners, specialized in clinical and scientific research from 8 European countries constitute SMARTool Consortium. SMARTool project is coordinated by Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche -Institute of Clinical Physiology (CNR - IFC) of Pisa (Italy). The Technical Coordinator of the SMARTool Project is Prof. D.I. Fotiadis (FORTH) and the Scientific Coordinator is Dr Gualtiero Pelosi (CNR).

For more information please contact:

Project website: http://www.smartool.eu/

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obYnz5imcCs    

Project coordinator: Dr. Silvia Rocchiccioli, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche -Institute of Clinical Physiology (CNR - IFC), Italy

Email: silvia.rocchiccioli@ifc.cnr.it