About the project and description of the research programme

Plan for Stable Activities of the Center after the End of the Project

The current project will reinforce the scientific and technological potential of the existing facilities and will provide an adequate and competitive basis for future research. The specific research programs will be funded by individual research grants. At the time of the application there are already ongoing cooperative projects, however, on setting up the new facilities new joint project proposals will be encouraged and required to address particular research activities. Moreover, it would be crucially important to succeed in the integration of the Center in the European and worldwide research area.

Several indicators exist that the CETRH and the created Network will have long lasting sustained impact on research as well as on clinical and public health in Bulgaria that would determine stable activities for the next coming years:

Critical mass: The Center of Excellence for Translational Research in Hematology provides the research infrastructure, equipment, tools and technical platforms, e.g. generation of an extensive tissue bank and clinical database, and the critical mass of expertise to overcome the widespread existing shortfalls currently faced by Oncological Hematology research in Bulgaria and thus to achieve research and clinical goals that cannot be achieved by a single (regional) center.
Accessibility: The established facilities will provide not only highly sophisticated methodologies and approaches, but these will be carried out by high throughput technological means and devices. This ensures a real access in practice not only for scientific trials conducted at the beneficiary institution but rather to the entire network of collaborators from the leading hematological units all over the country and to new collaborators as well.
Standardization: will have direct implications on

the research and also clinical progress by introducing a common diagnostic and prognostic platform in operation among the partners’ network;
the conducting of successful, single and multi-center retrospective and prospective validation studies of diagnostic or prognostic "tests",
the initiatiation of prospective validation studies of new "tests" based on recent improvements in genomic, proteomic and cytomic technologies in a multicenter study among the participating partners,
introduction of standards and national platforms for integrated molecular diagnostics and risk assessment based on a multifaceted approach and creation of national integrated diagnostic reference panels.

Biobank and Clinical Data Base: Currently rational therapy development requires a detailed understanding of subsets with regard to disparities in prognosis, treatment response and outcome. It is therefore perceived that the establishment of a national scale biobank with developed clinical data base containing comprehensive sets of clinical and lab data collected in an uniform standardized fashion will specifically address the growing needs to better risk stratify patients in the genomic era, to optimize conventional as well as emerging therapies and to overcome barriers related to limited sample size, to allow for adequate assessment of patient- and treatment-specific risks, and to overcome potential bias in study populations resulting from selection influences or incomplete follow-up.
New Partnerships: By providing infrastructure, storage facilities, expertise and communication practices the CETRH and the created Network will be widely open to other research teams from the whole country for joint projects and, moreover, the center will be able to offer highly sophisticated technology and methodological aid for partners from the neighboring Balkan countries who are interested in Neoplastic Hematology research. Thus, the center will support the promotion and development of the best measures on the regional level with a view of ensuring the highest level of haematological research and health care for the people in the region. The current project will greatly facilitate the integration of Bulgaria into the European biomedical scientific area as a partner of equal worth. In general, the Center with its partners’ network will improve the collaborations between academia and industry, e.g., SMEs, education, policy makers and the public health sector, patients and patients’ organisations.
Mobility: The project will provide networking, methodological training and a platform for future career development of a new generation of young scientists who would be the basis of mobility networks with international collaborators for exchange of researchers at all levels both during and after the timeframe of the project. The foreseen mobility and exchange of researchers will, on one side, improve the potential of Bulgarian scientists and, on the other, will infuse additional intellectual potential to European science. These will result in new collaborative interactions, joint projects, oportunities to join European networks of excellence and EU-funded Framework programs.
Communication: The establishment of communication and networks between previously isolated researchers in the same area of expertise creates the basis for longstanding and effective relationship. The CETRH will be the focus of the process for partnership that is based on two-way dialogue, where there is an interactive interchange of information, ideas, techniques and knowledge among partners on an equal footing, leading to improved understanding, shared knowledge, greater consensus, and identification of possible effective actions. Communication is the backbone of the present and of future networks which will build links and connections among people who have different perspectives – different takes on the world they see. Communicating about those perspectives brings the opportunities to discover new insights, new ideas and to shape new approaches to life.

Based on the above indicators we are convinced in the sustained and steady development of the Center of Excellence both during and after the timeframe of the project.