Call for transnational projects on the use of multi-omic integrated approaches for discovery of disease causes – E-Rare-3

The French National Research Agency will launch, in partnership with 18 countries, the tenth E-Rare joint call for funding multilateral research projects on rare diseases on “Hypothesis-driven use of multi-omic integrated approaches for discovery of disease causes and/or functional validation in the context of rare diseases”.

The aim of the call is to enable scientists in different countries to build an effective collaboration on a common interdisciplinary research project based on complementarities and sharing of expertise, with a clear translational research approach. Projects shall involve a group of rare diseases or a single rare disease following the European definition i.e. a disease affecting not more than five in 10.000 persons in the European Community, EC associated states and Canada.

The specific objective of this call is the hypothesis-driven use of multi-omic integrated approaches for discovery of disease causes and/or functional validation in the context of rare diseases.

Transnational research proposals must cover at least one of the following areas, which are equal in relevance for this call:

• Combined multi-omics approaches (e.g. epigenomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics, etc.) that complement genomics-based gene discovery strategies and that are driven by a lead hypothesis
• Functional validation of clinical or biological inferences obtained from “-omics” results
• Application of “-omics” approaches to rare diseases for which the gene(s) is/are known to enable insight into disease pathophysiology
• Development and application of concepts and methods for pathogenic read-outs of disease groups, which can be used as "blue print" to discover new disease genes and inform pathomechanism

Submission and evaluation of projects will be carried out in two stages and integrated with other countries. Each country shall fund its national teams according to its own procedures.

ARE EXCLUDED FROM THIS CALL FOR PROPOSALS: (1) therapeutic approaches concerning rare infectious diseases, rare cancers and rare adverse drug events in treatments of common diseases; (2) Interventional clinical trials

The French National Research Agency will finance solely French partners of selected projects, and for a maximum duration of 3 years.

Composition of the consortium

Each transnational consortium submitting a proposal must involve a minimum of three eligible and a maximum of six eligible partners from at least three different countries participating in the call. Not more than two eligible partners from the same country participating in the call will be accepted in one consortium.

Applicants are encouraged to include partners from the participating Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Turkey). If they include such partners, the maximum number of partners can be increased to eight.

Additional partners that secure their own funding may join consortia. However, their number is limited to two.