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The mission of AiPBAND is to train a new generation of entrepreneurial and innovative early-stage researchers (ESRs) in the early diagnosis of brain tumours using molecular biomarkers in the blood, meeting the medical and societal challenges of this emerging field. AiPBAND will focus on gliomas, a range of devastating and progressive brain tumours affecting around 25,000 people each year in Europe and responsible for the majority of deaths from primary brain tumours.

Fourteen fellows will be trained by experts in 9 academic and 3 non-academic beneficiaries, belonging to 5 EU member states and 6 partner organizations (4 private sectors and 2 international academic), with fields ranging from neuroscience, engineering (including big data science), healthcare to economics. State-of-the-art technologies will be applied in parallel to (i) identify novel blood biomarkers from patients with gliomas, (ii) design three types of multiplex biosensor (plasmonic-based, graphene-based, and digital ELISA assay-based), (iii) develop a big data-empowered intelligent data management infrastructure, and (iv) develop cloud-based diagnostic systems. Proof-of-concept will be evaluated through clinical trials to assess accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The elaborately designed individual research projects under the Vitae Researcher Development Framework – carefully arranged into local training courses, network-wide events, secondments, personalized career development plans, with strong involvement of the private sector – will ensure exploitation of AiPBAND's achievements, and will maximize the ESRs’ abilities in creative & innovative thinking, triple-i knowledge transformation, and encourage a business-orientated mind-set and entrepreneurship.