Strategic impact of the IBDchip Project

Impact on competitiveness

IBDchip will produce highly innovative, high value knowledge based products which will be first to market in a potentially very large sector both in Europe and overseas.

Impact on societal problems

After rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is the second most prevalent chronic non-fatal disease in Europe. The economic impact of IBD on society and health care systems is high due to its occurring during the economically productive years and its chronic nature. The IBDchip project will reduce the impact of IBD: predicting disease behavior; predicting the likelihood of needing surgery; providing better predictions of response to different pharmaceuticals and by improving “quality of life” for patients.

Impact on science and the European Research Area

The IBDchip project is the first time that knowledge about the full range of genetic factors will be captured and brought into the public domain and made available through conventional science dissemination routes to improve the teaching and practice of research centres across the European Union.

Goals in the LifeSciHealth Priority of the European Commission

The IBDchip project will contribute to the overall objectives of the LifeSciHealth Priority of the EC's Sixth Framework Programme in the following way:

• Leverage the gene sequence and post-genomic research - “translational approach”
• Integrate genomics and established practices
• Integrating and building critical mass

The IBDchip project addresses the second strategic line of section 1 - “Application of Knowledge and Technologies in the Field of Genomics and Biotechnology for Health”. The specific topic that the project addresses within this strategic line is “Development of new diagnostics” and its goals:

• To provide an innovative new tool
• To use a non-invasive method
• To contribute to predict disease progression
• To enable doctors to interpretate in-vivo data so as to choose the optimum and most cost-effective therapy for each patient