Molecular Genetics Thalassaemia Department

1. ThalaMoSS (www.thalamoss.eu)

THALAMOSS (Thalassaemia Modular Stratification System for personalized therapy of β-thalassemia) is aimed at development of universal sets of markers and techniques for stratification of β-thalassaemia patients into treatment subgroups for
(a) onset and frequency of blood transfusions
(b) choice of iron chelation
(c) induction of fetal hemoglobin
(d) prospective efficacy of gene-therapy.
At present, no framework exists to guide therapeutic decisions and personalised treatment of β-thalassaemia, and ThalaMoSS with the CING as partner for novel therapeutic approaches, for the provision of data on the ITHANET portal and for the analysis of Cypriot volunteers, seeks to rectify this shortcoming.

2.ITHANET (www.ithanet.eu)

ITHANET (Electronic Infrastructure for Thalassaemia Research Network) started out as a project within the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development of the European Union and was followed up by a grant from the Research Promotion Foundation of Cyprus for further development of the ITHANET Portal. The goal of ITHANET is to strengthen the Euromediterranean community of researchers in molecular and clinical research into thalassaemia and related haemoglobinopathies, and enhance its scientific potential  by providing community databases and using the existing and emerging eInfrastructure tools.

3.SAFE (www.safenoe.org)

SAFE (Special Non-Invasive Advances in Fetal and Neonatal Evaluation) Network started on 1 March 2004, and was set to run for a period of 5 years. It was sponsored under the EU Framework 6 programme and had 50 partners from 19 countries participating. SAFE aims to lay the foundations for European advances in NIPD (Non-invasive Prenatal Diagnosis) and NS (Neonatal Screening). It is a programme designed to achieve intellectual and practical integration with a view to enhance the efficacy of NIPD and NS for genetic disorders within and beyond the European Community. This programme is interested in the use of cell-free circulatory fetal DNA as a screening tool to determine pregnancies at risk for heterozygous Mendelian genetic disorders, such as the haemoglobinopathies prevalent in large proportions of the European population.

4.EUROGENE (www.eurogene.eu)

EUROGENE.eu is an open-access e-learning system in the domain of genetics that provides free multimedia learning resources in nine languages for statistical, medical and molecular genetics and delivers them to students and professionals. Content includes presentations, reviewed research articles, images, videos and learning packages submitted by world-leading geneticists.