ELLINIKO INSTITUTO MELETIS TIS SIPSIS

Their core work

The Hellenic Institute for the Study of Sepsis is an Athens-based research institute specializing in clinical immunology, with deep focus on sepsis, innate immunity, and personalized immunotherapy. They run clinical and translational research on how the immune system responds to infection, including work on interferon-gamma and IL-1 receptor antagonist pathways as therapeutic targets. They bring patient cohorts, immunological assays, and clinical trial capabilities to European consortia tackling infectious disease and vaccine response. In short: they are the people you call when an immunology project needs real patients and a group that understands sepsis biology at the bedside.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first H2020 engagement (TRAIN-OLD, 2019) sat in fundamental immunology — trained immunity and vaccine response in older adults, linked to an ERC Advanced Grant. By 2020 they joined ImmunoSep, a much larger RIA focused on turning sepsis treatment into precision-medicine practice with specific immunotherapies. The shift goes from mechanism-oriented vaccine biology toward clinical, patient-stratified immunotherapy — moving innate-immunity knowledge to the bedside.

They are moving from basic immunology toward clinically actionable, biomarker-guided immunotherapy — a strong fit for consortia translating immune science into patient care.

How they like to work

They participate as partners rather than coordinators, joining consortia where their clinical immunology know-how complements basic science and pharma partners. With 14 unique partners across 8 countries in just two projects, they work comfortably in mid-to-large European consortia. Expect a specialist contribution — clinical samples, immunological expertise, and sepsis insight — rather than overall project management.

They have collaborated with 14 distinct partners across 8 countries, anchored in Athens but fully embedded in pan-European immunology and infectious-disease networks.

What sets them apart

Few groups in Europe combine deep sepsis clinical expertise with active engagement in trained-immunity and vaccine research — this institute sits at exactly that intersection. Based in Greece, they give consortia access to southern European patient populations and a dedicated sepsis research infrastructure rather than a generic university immunology lab. Partner with them when a project needs real sepsis patients, serious immunoassays, or a bridge between innate-immunity science and clinical immunotherapy.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ImmunoSep
  Their largest engagement (EUR 2.4M) and a flagship European effort to apply precision medicine to sepsis using targeted immunotherapies.
• TRAIN-OLD
  Tackles a high-impact problem — improving vaccine response in the elderly — through the emerging concept of trained immunity.