Prof Neeltje van Haren of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology heads the new FAMILY consortium, which will receive over 3.1 million euros. Her research aims to understand why children with a parent with a severe psychiatric disorder have an increased risk of becoming psychiatrically ill themselves too in adulthood.
This phenomenon is called intergenerational transmission. In the Netherlands alone, this concerns about 500,000 children.
Experts from across Europe are joining forces in the FAMILY consortium to better understand the mechanisms behind intergenerational transmission of risk for psychiatric illness and to identify genetic or environmental factors that reduce risk or increase resilience.
Van Haren: ‘We are very excited to get started and contribute with our work to a better understanding of the origins of psychiatric disorders. This is necessary to make further progress in preventing and better treating these disorders.’
Decision-support tools
Dr Judith Rietjens and Dr Ida Korfage of the Department of Public Health will lead a research project called 4D PICTURE, with a budget of over 2 million euros. The project’s goal is to improve tools that support cancer patients in making complex treatment choices. ‘Existing decision-support tools rarely take into account quality of life or individual preferences, and their use in clinical practice remains limited. Our mission is that individualized medicine becomes truly person-centered, says Rietjens.
To achieve this goal, a multidisciplinary team from eight countries will develop decision-support tools and conversation guides for patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, or melanoma. The team aims to better predict treatment outcomes by developing innovative algorithms and integrating patients’ experiences, values and preferences, with artificial intelligence-based models.
Rietjens and Korfage are working with colleagues from the departments of Medical Ethics, Medical Informatics, Urology, and the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute.
Other projects
In addition to the two projects coordinated by Erasmus MC, Rotterdam scientists participate in another four Horizon Europe-funded projects with a combined budget of over 1.6 million euros. These projects focus on emerging infectious diseases, anticoagulation treatment in cancer patients, air quality, and cancer screening.