The team of the Medical University of Lodz consists of an experienced, interdisciplinary group of researchers and clinicians.The team’s leader is Professor Jakub Kaźmierski, MD, PhD, head of The Department of Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotic Disorders, Faculty of Gerontology, Medical University of Lodz. Head and principal investigator of many scientific research, he conducts extensive scientific activity on immunological and metabolic changes in the course of depression and schizophrenia, research on biomarkers and pathophysiology of delirium after cardiac surgery, clinical, environmental and genetic factors determining remission in psychotic disorders, bifrontal electrotherapy treatment in patients with schizophrenia, quality of life and pathophysiology of ADHD in adults, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients diagnosed with dementia. The Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the annual nationwide Psychogeriatric Workshops. Clinical Ambassador at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology Transfer. Reviewer in international medical journals. Head and coordinator in Poland of the project "INtelligent system to empower functional independence of people with mild cognitive impairments", EIT Health. Head and principal investigator at randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluating the efficacy and safety of dimethyl fumarate among patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and mild to moderate dementia in the course of Alzheimer's disease, funded by the Medical Research Agency. Head and principal investigator in Poland of the project "Bringing the beneficial cognitive, social and physical effects of immersive training to the high-functioning senior home-user", funded by the AAL.

 

The TO_AITION project team includes Professor Maciej Chałubiński, MD, PhD, specialist in allergology, internal medicine, and clinical immunology (on-going). Currently, he is a professor of the Medical University of Lodz and the head of the Department of Immunology and Allergy. The president of the thematic section of Polish Society of Allergology: "Microbiome, infections and allergy", and Editor in Chief of “Allergy, Asthma, Immunology ‐ clinical review”. Head of National Science Centre projects (3x) and head of Polish consortia in Horizon EU projects (2x). In 2008-2010 a post-doctoral position at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF) in Davos at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Interested in a role of the lung vascular endothelium and bronchial epithelium in the immunopathology of airway viral infections and asthma, type 2 inflammation, innate immunity, trained immunity, and allergy. Author of 47 international scientific publications in the field of immunology, virology, allergy and cardiology, author of book chapters in allergology, the reviewer in scientific journals, and the expert in the scientific foundations.

 

In the TO_AITION, using a multidisciplinary approach and data collected from a unique cohort of patients with advanced cardiovascular disease, the Medical University of Lodz team is working on identifying shared risk markers common to both CVD outcomes and depression, of common mechanisms, pathways and molecules driving multimorbidity, of novel biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of CVD-depression. In their work, they focus on the role of the soluble receptor for advanced glycation-end products (sRAGE) as a potential biomarker of depression risk among patients qualified for coronary artery bypass graft surgery. The second area under analysis are genetic polymorphisms related to the gene glutamate decarboxylase 1 which codes enzyme GAD67 and glutamate decarboxylase 2 which codes enzyme GAD65, both of which are responsible for catalyzing the production of GABA from glutamate in the brain. The association of the determined polymorphisms with cardiovascular disease and comorbid depression will be analysed.