Rationale and background The prevention and care of chronic diseases are among the priorities of the EU's current health strategy. Chronic kidney disease (CKD), one of the most common chronic degenerative diseases, is often accompanied by a high mortality and morbidity, and has a high socio-economic impact. Objectives•Strengthen the cooperation among Universities in order to boost innovation and exchange of best practices•Set-up a multidisciplinary and highly specialized training course in Nephrology, Pathology and Molecular Medicine Applied to Nephrology; •Train a new professional, the renal molecular pathologists (ReMaP), able to evaluate clinical, histopathological and molecular signatures of renal damage;•Develop an e-learning course specifically designed to provide distance education to other physicians, pathologists and molecular biologists from other centers;Partecipants The partners of the present project are members of the Immunonephrology Working Group (IWG) of the European Renal Association-European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA). They have already shared knowledge and competences to characterize renal diseases through the development of some collaborative projects namely 1) VALIGA (validation study of the new clinical and pathological classification of IgA nephropathy) and 2) the development of the ERA-EDTA database on recurrent glomerulonephritis after renal transplantation. Some IWG board members with experience in performing renal biopsy (Drs Gesualdo’s, Tesar’s, Floege’s groups), in the interpretation of histological renal lesions (Drs Florquin’s group, Cannata's group) and in systems biology (Drs Deltas’s and Gesualdo's groups) have decided to propose, for the first time in the world, this educational project for the creation of a new profession: the Renal Molecular Pathologist (ReMaP). The scientific partners will be supported by an Italian ICT SME (GRIFO multimedia srl), with long-lasting experience in the field of e-learning, and knowledge and content management, to develop an e-course containing both theory and practical exercitations.Project activities Twelve trainees from 6 European countries (2 for each scientific partner) will join this training course. The partners (highly specialized nephrology clinical centers, renal pathology centers and research units) will carry out lectures and practical exercises on the following topics:1)NephroPathology (etiopathogenesis, diagnosis, prognosis and management of acquired and inherited renal disease accompaniedby the discussion of 100 clinical cases); 2)Histopathology and tele-histopathology (renal biopsies and their interpretation with specific focus on the use of tele-histopathology to share opinions among experts accompanied by the discussion of 200 histopathological cases); 3)OMICS (use of high-troughput strategies namely genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to identify new panels of molecular markers useful for diagnosis, prognosis and personalized therapy).Each group of trainees will join lectures and practical exercises provided by its reference institution (i.e. Bari for Italian trainees, Prague for Czech trainees, etc.). The ICT partner will develop a dedicated OPEN e-learning platform that will be used to provide the lectures' contents to other trainees. During the project, each trainee will have 19 days blended mobilities in rotation per year on partner institutions (one among the clinical nephrology units in the first year; one among the renal pathology institution in the second year and one among the OMICS research institutions in the last year). At the end of the course we expect to train the first 12 European Renal Molecular Pathologists, a new professional having outstanding experience in Nephrology, Pathology and Molecular Diagnostics. Impact The project will have two major outcomes: a blended course and relevant e-learning courses (i.e. learining objectives, materials and video-courses as open educational resources).The frameworks of evaluation of e-learning/blended learning course efficacy comprise three major axes:1) Assessments, which aim at evaluating the students’ improvement over time. 2) Reach and engagement, which, based on statistical information gathered by the e-learning course, concerning indicators such as drop-off rates and reasons, rates of completion per unit/lesson, participation from different countries 3) Creating/Sharing a contemporary Educational Course Furthermore long-term impacts will encompass:•Consolidation of the role of the University as a generator of human resources of high profile through the creation of a new professional, the Renal Molecular Pathologist, that will gain new expertise in medical diagnostics •Institutionalization of the ReMAP training course by the partner Universities•More accurate diagnosis of CKD, improvement of quality of life of the patients and saving of costs for the European Health System
Context/background of the project The prevention and care of chronic diseases are among the priorities of the EU's current health strategy. Chronic kidney disease (CKD), one of the most common chronic degenerative diseases, is often accompanied by high mortality and morbidity and has a high socio-economic impact. In particular, even if renal biopsy remains the “conditio sine qua non” for a correct diagnosis of renal disease, advances in scientific knowledge have helped characterize the pathogenetic mechanisms of a growing number of renal diseases at the molecular level. The current project addressed the need to uniform education and practices across Europe in order to establish the first official European Renal Molecular Pathology training course: high-quality, specific and advanced training course on nephrology which allows understanding the underlying molecular processes undetected using the current histopathological techniques. Objectives - to strengthen the cooperation among Universities in order to boost innovation and exchange of best practices - to set-up a multidisciplinary and highly specialized training course in Nephrology, Renal Pathology and Molecular Medicine applied to Nephrology - to train a new professional, the renal molecular pathologist (ReMaP), able to evaluate clinical, histopathological and molecular signatures of renal damage - to develop an open-access e-learning course specifically designed to provide distance education to other physicians, pathologists and molecular biologists at European level Number and profile of participating organizations: The REMAP Consortium is composed of 6 academic institutions whose contact persons are members of the Immunonephrology Working Group (IWG) of the European Renal Association-European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA). They have already shared knowledge and competences to characterize renal diseases through the development of some collaborative projects namely 1) VALIGA (validation study of the new clinical and pathological classification of IgA nephropathy) and 2) the development of the ERA-EDTA database on recurrent glomerulonephritis after renal transplantation. Some IWG board members with experience in performing renal biopsy (Drs Gesualdo’s, Tesar’s, Floege’s groups), in the interpretation of histological renal lesions (Drs Florquin’s group, Cannata's group) and in systems biology (Drs Deltas’s and Gesualdo's groups) have decided to propose, for the first time in the world, this educational project for the creation of a new professional profile: the renal molecular pathologist (REMAP). The scientific partners have been supported by 1 ICT company (GRIFO Multimedia), with long-lasting experience in the field of e-learning, and knowledge and content management, to develop an e-course containing both theory and practical exercises. Project activities 11 trainees from 6 European countries attended the advanced training course. The partners (highly specialized nephrology clinical centers, renal pathology centers, and research units) carried out e-lectures and practical exercises on the following topics: 1) Clinical Nephrology (etiopathogenesis, diagnosis, prognosis, and management of acquired and inherited renal disease accompanied by the discussion of 50 clinical cases) 2) Digital Pathology (renal biopsies and their interpretation with a specific focus on the use of digital pathology to share opinions among experts accompanied by the discussion of 150 histopathological cases) 3) OMICS (use of high-throughput strategies namely genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to identify new panels of molecular markers useful for diagnosis, prognosis, and personalized therapy) During the project lifetime, each trainee experienced 3 internships lasting 15 days each in different partner institutions in order to exchange clinical practices as well as laboratory protocols. At the end of the course, REMAP consortium trained the first 11 European renal molecular pathologists as new professionals having outstanding experience in Clinical Nephrology, Digital Pathology, and Molecular Diagnostics applied to Nephrology. GRIFO Multimedia released a dedicated open access e-learning platform that provides high-quality educational material to learners worldwide. Impact Development of the open-access e-course for distance education at the global level Acquisition of highly specialized knowledge of renal diseases and histopathology techniques Acquisition of practical knowledge of renal diseases through the practical cases discussion Acquisition of mastery in the use of techniques for the molecular analysis of the biological samples Long-term benefits - Consolidation of the role of the University as a generator of human resources of high profile through the creation of a new competitive professional profile at a global scale - Strong commitment to institutionalize the REMAP training course as an Internationa Master