The meeting for the launching of the European project Translink, which aims to determine the factors that govern the deterioration and failure caused by an autoimmune response to biological heart valve prostheses and the development of treatments to avoid these problems was held on 23 and 24 September in Padua (Italy ). The start- up Mind the Byte, located at the Parc Científic de Barcelona, is one of four Spanish partners of the consortium, which is composed of six public research organizations, 4 hospitals and 3 SMEs. The results of their work will have a major impact on the population, since conditions associated with heart valves are the third leading cause of cardiovascular disease and the replacement of these prostheses is the second most common surgical procedure in cardiac surgery.

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Translink will last four years with a budget of 7.8 M € – co-financed by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme. The project will be developed through an international consortium of 13 members from 6 European countries-, led by the Azienda Ospedaliera di Padova (Italy) – with complementary resources and capabilities that combine applied research in the clinical setting with medicinal chemistry, artificial intelligence , cell experimentation and biotechnology.

Spanish partners of the consortium are: the Catalan Institute of Health, the Biomedical Research Institute of Bellvitge (IDIBELL ), InKemia IUCT Group (through its subsidiary IUCT, SA) and Mind the Byte . The project also involves the participation of the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (France), the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nantes (France), the University College London (United Kingdom), the University of Tel Aviv (Israel), the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), the Regents of the University of California (USA) and the Italian biotech AVANTEA.

Each year, 300,000 patients benefit from a heart valve prosthesis of animal origin that has advantages over mechanical prostheses, such as the lack of dependence on anticoagulant therapy. However, this type of prostheses have the disadvantage that their half-life is shorter, with a higher risk of failure in young patients, and therefore they are only recommended for use in people over 65 years of age.

On one hand, the members of the Translink consortium will define markers responsible for the deterioration of heart bioprostheses and will make progress into the insight of adverse immune response. Moreover, they will provide solutions both from the point of view of prevention (a prosthetic design that does not contain those antigens responsible for the immune response) as well as from the point of view of treatment (development of bioadsorbents of antibodies related to prosthetic damage).

The Spanish partners have an important role in clinical research and in the development of experimental models for understanding the causes that govern the damage to these valves, as well as the discovery of new treatments to prevent such damage.

As a company specializing in IT solutions applied to biotechnological and biomedical research, the contribution of the start- up Mind the Byte to the project will consist in the discovery and computational design (in silico) of new compounds against antibodies related to prosthetic damage as well as those involved in hyaluronic acid and N – glicolilneuroaminic antacid.

“Translink is a high-level scientific project that will allow us to continue to invest in R&D + I and actively promote our line of business in a strategic ecosystem, where different areas of expertise from academia, research and business converge . This consortium is a “clear example of the need for multidisciplinary collaboration” says Alfons Nonell-Canals, founder and CEO of Mind the Byte.