The LOOP Zurich launches first research projects

The new medical research center The LOOP Zurich will develop therapies that are specifically tailored to meet the individual needs of patients. To this end, the center is bundling the expertise of the University of Zurich(UZH), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and four university hospitals, namely the University Hospital Zurich (USZ), the University Children’s Hospital Zurich (KiSpi), University Hospital Balgrist and the University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich (PUK).

“We’re bringing together the best researchers in biomedical research, clinical research and bioinformatics to conduct innovative research together,” explains Beatrice Beck-Schimmer, Vice President Medicine at UZH, in a press release. This collaboration with hospitals will also give researchers unparalleled access to patients.

One of the new center’s core competencies is in biomedical informatics. To develop bespoke therapies for patients, improved data analysis will also be necessary. Among other things, a new biomedical informatics platform will be established at the Zurich center. This will offer the shared research infrastructure needed to exchange and benefit from this medical data.

The LOOP Zurich recently launched the first two research consortia, as the press release outlines. One explores motor rehabilitation in stroke and Parkinson’s patients. Using artificial intelligence and deep brain stimulation, personalized rehabilitation therapies will be used to enable patients’ movement to return and improve in the long term. 

The second project is about precision treatments for blood cancer patients. In this, researchers will extract cancer cells from patients and cultivate them in the lab. The aim is to use computational analysis to create a detailed map that illustrates which cells respond in which way to the drug’s active ingredients. It will help improve predictions about the effects of the drugs on individual patients.