March 04, 2016
Bulletin interne de l'Institut Pasteur
LIGHT4DEAF project selected for funding in the "Health Research at Teaching Hospitals" section of the Investing in the Future program
Launched as part of the Investing in the Future program, the "Health Research at Teaching Hospitals" (RHU) category was set up to support and extend translational or clinical research projects that can benefit from fundamental research in biology, epidemiology, social sciences and health economics, with the aim of improving: (1) the understanding of diseases, (2) the introduction of more effective, better tolerated treatments, and (3) the performance of healthcare systems, with the ultimate goal of improving patient treatment. The RHU program is closely linked with the French network of teaching hospital departments and federations, and it reflects recent efforts by hospitals, universities and research centers to restructure research in teaching hospitals. The program is also designed to encourage research partnerships in the field of health and life sciences by incorporating a clear target of technology transfer and business development, with the aim of creating strong partnerships between academic research and private industry.
The RHU program was launched in 2014 by the French National Research Agency (ANR) and was given a budget of €200 million. In 2015, the four best projects out of the 29 submitted during the first call for proposals were selected by an international panel. These projects include LIGHT4DEAF, coordinated, for the audition part, by Christine Petit, Head of the Genetics and Physiology of Hearing Unit, Inserm Director of Research and a professor at the Collège de France and Aziz El Amraoui (Institut Pasteur). LIGHT4DEAF is led by José-Alain Sahel, a professor at Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC) and Director of the Institut de la Vision. LIGHT4DEAF was set up to tackle Usher syndrome, a condition that results in deafness and progressive vision loss. The project uses a highly innovative interdisciplinary approach, involving researchers and specialists in ophthalmology, ENT, neuroscience and human science, in a bid to combat this debilitating multi-sensory disability which affects approximately one in every 20,000 people.
The LIGHT4DEAF project will be given €9.5 million in funding over a 5-year period. It was officially launched on February 18 at a ceremony attended by the ANR representatives and all the partners involved in the project.