HUS year 2023: Research infrastructures
EU-funded research and innovation activities
We set an all-time HUS record in EU funding and were one of the top 16 EU-funded organizations in Finland.
We prepared two EU consortium project applications as a coordinator. In the autumn, we launched the PHEMS project, which we are leading and which was granted EU funding. We are currently leading four other ongoing EU consortium projects (AICCELERATE, LONGCOVID, ENDOTARGET, ONCOVALUE) and are a partner in more then 20 ongoing EU projects.
The CleverHealth Network corporate partnership, coordinated by us and funded by Business Finland, expanded to the EU level as several of the businesses in the CleverHealth Network joined the ONCOVALUE and PHEMS projects as partners.
We joined the SITRA-coordinated Tehdas2 project aimed at developing safe access to health data in Europe. We are also involved in the ‘TEF-Health Testing and Experimentation Facility for Health AI and Robotics’ project and in the ‘EU Network of Comprehensive Cancer Infrastructures’. These are all major EU-level networking projects.
Helsinki Biobank connects research and healthcare
The number of biobank consents increased significantly in 2023. The FinnGen3-project facilitated biobank research.
In 2023, the Helsinki Biobank was in a vital role in promoting research and innovation in cancer treatment and prevention. The iCAN project is a flagship project funded by the Academy of Finland. To date, HUS and the University of Helsinki collaborating in this project have harvested and analyzed tissue samples from some 2,000 cancer patients, assisted by the Helsinki Biobank. New and more personalized digital precision cancer medicine methods have now been introduced to treat patients.
The Genomiterveys (genome health) project, meanwhile, piloted the transfer of genomic information returned from the study to healthcare nationwide. This project is coordinated by the Helsinki Biobank and funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. The advanced proactive pathway developed here focuses on individuals whose biobank sample shows a high risk of breast cancer. These individuals have been successfully directed to healthcare for genetic counseling and subsequent preventive care or monitoring. A health economic cost-benefit analysis was also performed on the project. The Finnish Biobank Cooperative named the Genomiterveys project ‘biobank project of the year 2023’.
The Rare3k study of rare diseases continued in the year under review. A new disease complex was provisionally identified in patients with suspected hereditary epilepsy; their biobank samples were analyzed for pathogenic variants of susceptibility genes. Returns of genetic findings related to hereditary growth disorders and macular degeneration were continued.