The primary objective of the Center of competence for molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine, "MOLDIMED” is to achieve critical mass of experts, institutions, and knowledge in research, development, protection of IP, certification, technology transfer, and commercionalization of in vitro diagnostics, in order to create market oriented flexible national network in area of diagnostic, prognostic and predictive biomarkers and to enable further development of personalized medicine. The Center is supported from the Technological Agency of the Czech Republic (2014-2019).
The key goal of the MOLDIMED project is discovery, development and technology transfer of new knowledge in the translational biomedical sciences, particularly focusing on the biomarker and molecular diagnostics area. To achieve its goal, MOLDIMED will capitalize on existing close links among major academic institutions in the country represented by the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine at Palacký University in Olomouc, the Central European Institute of Technologies at Masaryk University in Brno, the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, IT4Innovations/VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava; major hospitals providing direct access to clinical material and potential clinical diagnostics trials – the University Hospital in Olomouc and the University Hospital in Brno; private enterprises involved in diagnostics, development and manufacturing of molecular diagnostics - Generi Biotech, s.r.o., IntellMed, s.r.o., Sofigen, s.r.o. and CGB, a.s. The project participants are willing to create a vehicle that will transform the way biomarker research is performed in the Czech Republic. Recognizing that no single institution alone can assemble the necessary resources, the consortium participants elected to enter into a collaborative partnership with the common goal of creating a functional network enabling productive R&D of molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine. The MOLDIMED model, enabling strategic alignment of individual strengths, lends itself to many other areas of scientific research and commercial exploitation. We believe that MOLDIMED has the potential to establish national and international leadership in niche areas where the Czech Republic has strong academic and industrial research as well as clinical expertise.