Australian behemoth CSL’s Research Acceleration Initiative (RAI) continues to expand its reach with seven medical researchers awarded new RAI partnerships, including up to an AU$500,000 investment in each programme over two years, to fast-track the discovery of innovative biotherapies to address unmet medical needs.

The CSL Research Acceleration Initiative establishes partnerships between CSL and global research organisations to progress discoveries towards real-world treatments and accelerate the commercialisation of promising discovery programmes. 

Dr Laurent Martinez at Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases (I2MC), IHU HealthAge, INSERM / University of Toulouse, France, is developing a novel class of therapeutic candidates for vascular diseases including stroke. I

Prof. Delphine Borgel, at INSERM - APHP - Université Paris SACLAY, France is developing therapeutic nanobodies for the prevention and treatment of vaso-occlusive crisis in sickle cell disease without increased risk of infections.

Prof. Denis Vivien, at INSERM / Caen Normandie University Hospital, France aims to establish improvements in diagnosis and treatment of neurovascular diseases by targeting micro-thrombi with nanoparticles that are safe and do not induce hemorrhagic transformation.

Research Director Benoit Salomon,  at INSERM / University of Toulouse, France intends to stimulate regulatory T cells for the treatment of autoimmune myositis and increased muscle regeneration after injury.

Assoc Prof.  Tan Meng How, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore will research novel methods, utilising DNA repair proteins, to enhance insertional gene editing in human cells.

Prof. Elisa Laurenti, at University of Cambridge, United Kingdom will investigate mRNA-based solutions to minimise the loss of haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) function occurring during an ex vivo gene therapy protocol. 

Prof. Leon Schulte, at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany will investigate the targeting of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) to enable precision-interventions in misguided immune-circuits during systemic inflammatory response-syndrome (SIRS), thus aiming to improve the survival rate of affected patients.