Beyond the horizon

Last week, Dr. Ofer Kobo, a senior physician in Hillel Yaffe Medical Center's Cardiology Division met for the first time with the other members of the international CVDLINK consortium, which was granted EUR 10 million in funding from the European Union’s grant program, Horizon Europe, which works to establish partnerships in research, development and innovation between Israeli and European organizations from industry, academia, research institutes and private organizations.

The new consortium (CVDLINK) will conduct international research designed primarily to make medical information from various countries in Europe accessible in order to facilitate the creation of AI-based tools to improve medical research of cardiovascular diseases. The consortium is made up of 19 organizations from all of Europe, including universities, research institutions, startups, hospitals, institutional ethics committees and diverse professionals such as engineers, physicians and scientists as well as software and AI professionals. Hillel Yaffe Medical Center is one of five medical centers included in the database, and it earned a place in the consortium along with Kinneret, the venture established by the Directorate of Government Medical Centers.

The Horizon grant consortium team at its kick-off meeting held this past week in Romania

“This is research that will be conducted over four years and will include, among other things, the establishment of a research team in our Cardiology Division at Hillel Yaffe and a well-defined work interface with the various members of the consortium,” said Dr. Kobo. “The research involves clinical research, epidemiology, in-depth surveys and more. Together with the work being done in the consortium’s various task forces, this will lead to sharing of knowledge and skills, which we hope will help promote better and personalized treatment in the future for predicting cardiovascular diseases.”

Dr. Sharon Rashi-Elkeles, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center's Innovation and Research Division Director, said, “I’m proud to be a partner in the effort that places Hillel Yaffe among a distinguished group of Israeli medical centers that have won a grant for scientific-industrial partnership from the prestigious Horizon Europe grant program. The fact that Hillel Yaffe was selected is not a matter of coincidence, but a winning combination of defining research and innovation as a leading goal in the coming years.”