Early stage researchers educational program on factor viii immunogenicity
The development of anti-drug antibodies is the major complication of treatment with biotherapeutics. This is particularly true
of patients with haemophilia A (HA) who develop neutralizing antibodies to therapeutic factor VIII (FVIII) following
replacement therapy with exogenous pro-coagulant FVIII. The onset of neutralizing antibodies to FVIII, referred to as FVIII
inhibitors, represents a major societal concern owing to the enormous cost associated to the clinical management of
inhibitor-positive patients, that exceeds 200,000€/patient/year. The EDUC8 program is a multidisciplinary training program
with exposure of the enrolled ESRs to a core common educational package and development of individual PhD research
projects dedicated to decreasing the societal burden associated with the development of anti-FVIII antibodies in Europe. The
core educational program includes exposure to basic science in the fields of immunology and hemostasis, to the most
advanced “omic” technologies in order to anticipate tomorrow’s scientific discoveries, and to the importance of ethical
considerations and public awareness in today’s research. A key component of the training program is provided by immersion
of the ESRs in a clinical center for HA, which will provide them with a unique experience and foster the conception of novel
and realistic therapeutic approaches. The ESRs will exploit the accumulated theoretic and practical experience in an
entrepreneurship training on key strategic, technical, financial and human resource issues required for the creation of startups.
In a tribute to the concept of the fully developed mind coined by the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne on
education, our ambition is to form a novel generation of scientists with deep scientific knowledge, multicultural exposure,
imagination, pragmatism and understanding of both the academic and private sectors. This will foster translational research in European on the immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins.