Breaking the path to better health: Martel’s Horizon Europe e-health projects

Martel is proud to announce two new Horizon Europe e-health projects aimed at breaking the path to better health. The first project, called CYLCOMED, focuses on enhancing the cybersecurity of connected medical devices, while the second project, called DIOPTRA, aims to revolutionize colorectal cancer screening. Both projects aim to use AI-powered solutions to improve the performance, safety, and accuracy of medical care.

Cybersecurity is a growing concern for connected medical devices (CMDs) and the healthcare sector as a whole. As the healthcare sector becomes more connected, the large volumes of data stored and maintained in healthcare organisations get increasingly exposed to cybersecurity risks for organisations and patients alike.

CYLCOMED, a 3-year Horizon Europe Research and Innovation action, starts work to develop a new cybersecurity framework for healthcare solutions relying on connected medical devices. CYLCOMED’s strong consortium will implement and release a toolbox that allows stakeholders to avoid and prevent cyber-risks in the CMDs ecosystem. In this project, Martel Media is leader for the communication and dissemination strategy. At the same time, Martel Lab will provide tools for the secure management of devices and services for connected medical solutions with the aim to ensure that delivered solutions are up-to-date with latest security patches and that their faulty configuration is not increasing the surface of attack.

The second project, called DIOPTRA, is a 4-year Horizon Europe Research and Innovation action, which will provide early dynamic screening for colorectal cancer (CRC). Statistics show that colorectal cancer is the third most common tumour in men and the second in women, accounting for 10% of all tumours worldwide. It ranks second in cancer-related deaths with 9.4%, only below lung cancer.

In this context, DIOPTRA aspires to constitute the driving force for creating change in colorectal cancer screening and everyday medical practice through accessible and noninvasive risk estimation, employing a straightforward liquid biopsy to stratify citizens in need for definitive assessment. Via DIOPTRA, screening and early detection become faster, more precise, personalised, accessible and affordable, breaking the path to better health. Against the backdrop of taxing procedures hindering citizens from seeking screening on a scheduled basis and the lack of EU-wide standardised screening, DIOPTRA aims to introduce a front-line clinical decision support tool that will consider risk factors and protein biomarkers for pinpointing high-risk cases in actual need of colonoscopy. In this project, Martel Media is leader for the communication and dissemination strategy.

“These two projects are very important for Martel in line with our ambition to deliver innovative technologies for the good of our society, breaking the path to better health. Digital health and care are essential to improve the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and management of health issues. CYLCOMED and DIOPTRA will contribute to more precise, personalized, and affordable health care than ever before.”, said Dr Monique Calisti, CEO of Martel.

Both projects are powered by strong consortia involving researchers, healthcare and technology providers.