PROJECT

PARENT is an EU-funded project that envisions a multidisciplinary approach to challenge early diagnosis of newborn motor/cognitive impairments. It is part of the European Innovative Training Networks programme, in the form of collaborative European Training Network (a competitively selected joint research training and doctoral programme).

PARENT combines the efforts of a multidisciplinary network of leading European research groups, industry partners, paediatric hospitals and parent’s associations to develop a technological infrastructure that will train Early Stage Researchers (ESR) to conduct top-notch research in leading academic institutions, hospitals and industry R&D divisions. During the research there will be strong emphasis on career development and on achieving impact.

PARENT multidisciplinary approach and technologies will make a critical contribution towards an open neurodevelopmental disease diagnostic software infrastructure by interlinking disciplines from clinical data, neuroimaging collection and processing, biomarkers, data fusion, machine learning applied to clinical data, novel prediction algorithms.

PARENT approach can be included in the more general paradigm of evidence-based medicine, precision medicine and patient center-care, as well as decision support systems in clinical field.

Prematurity exponentially increases the risk for an altered neurodevelopmental outcomes in childhood and adolescence. Many survivors children, face a lifetime of disability. Despite the advances in neonatal care have greatly improved survival of preterm born infants even at extremely low gestational ages we are now at a period of steadiness where no further improvement in long-term neurodevelopmental outcome is seen. The impact of these sequelae affects not only at a personal and familiar level but also poses a significant burden on society. Early diagnostics of brain injury and/or brain dysmaturation as well as early detection of impairments are important strategies to improve the well-being of children and their families allowing for developmental monitoring and medical evaluation of the specific type of disorder that affects a child and optimize therapeutics options.
In this context, PARENT is a vision for a multidisciplinary approach to develop diagnostic and predictive platforms focused on newborn motor/cognitive impairments.

PARENT will make a critical contribution towards an open neurodevelopmental disease diagnostic software infrastructure by interlinking disciplines from clinical data, neuroimaging collection and processing, biomarkers, data fusion, machine learning applied to clinical data, novel prediction algorithms. To best leverage the data potential, PARENT envisions an easy-to-use software infrastructure which provides integrated databases, validated algorithms components and platforms built upon them. This vision can be included in the more general paradigm of evidence-based medicine, personalized medicine and patient center care, as well as decision support systems in clinical field.
PARENT combines the efforts of a multidisciplinary network of 10 leading European research groups, industry partners, pediatric hospitals and parents’ association to develop a technological infrastructure that will train 15 Early Stage Researchers..