The Academic Medical Centre Amsterdam (AMC) is one of the foremost research institutions in the Netherlands, as well as one of its largest hospitals. Over 7000 people work here to provide integrated patient care, fundamental and clinical scientific research, and teaching. The AMC complex houses the University Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine of University of Amsterdam. The AMC coordinates or participates in over 90 European-funded projects in various programmes and actions. A number of Biotech companies (some of which are AMC spin-offs) are also located on the premises. Together with the Free University Medical Center (VUMC), the AMC forms the Amsterdam University Medical Centre (Amsterdam UMC) as one single academic entity.
At the AMC location some 1500 members of staff are either fully or partially employed in medical research, which is regularly subjected to scrutiny by a panel of international scientists. Many of the departments and research groups at the AMC work closely with leading foreign institutions all over the globe. This concentration of expertise makes the center a breeding ground for fruitful scientific collaboration with publications in top journals that are reckoned among the best in the world.
The AMC focuses on translational research and its co-location with the hospital facilitates integration of research and clinical teams. The institute houses a large number of high-quality core facilities. The host laboratories of the Dept of Microbiology, Experimental Immunology and Experimental Medicine house more than 200 researchers and are fully equipped and licensed to conduct the diagnostics and translational research described in the application.
The Pilot Demonstration Study will be coordinated by Prof Kuijpers at the AMC. In total, the pilot study will involve at least 8 sites in Europe, each with strong track records in delivering large clinical studies to time and target (ICL, LIV, AMC, SERGAS, NKUA, RSU, UKCL, MUG). At the ED of the AMC in Amsterdam 30,000 patients are seen annually. Of these patients 4,000 blood cultures were sent to the Dept of Microbiology from the ED and about 750 nose-throat swabs for rapid viral diagnostics. Inclusion with the other partners in Europe will guarantee sufficient inclusions over the predefined period to evaluate the device to be tested for the discriminating capacity of our transcriptome analysis as Personalised Molecular Signature Diagnostics (PMSD) in all patients included. Technical evaluation of the performance of the PMSD data in the pilot demonstration will be led by SkylineDX, whose expertise in technical evaluation and development of market profiles of medical devices will be invaluable.
The clinical groups at the AMC contributing to DIAMONDS consists of general paediatricians and specialists in paediatric Immunology, Rheumatology and Infectious Diseases; treating children with infectious disease, immunity, and inflammation, including immunodeficiencies over the last 15 years. The Amsterdam UMC covers a relatively large region of about 4 million people. The same region is being served by the Dept of Internal Medicine for adult care and the infectious disease specialists at our centre. Genomics and proteomics facilities as well as bioinformatics teams offer their services for large-scale studies and analytical power as demanded for the current proposal. Facilities include equipment for standard and fully accredited diagnostic testing, and various research and state-of-the-art imaging facilities, including animal housing facility for rodents and pigs.
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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 848196