The Pneumopath project represents a new approach to research into Streptococcus pneumoniae being a comprehensive study of the host-pathogen interactions during infection with the objective of identifying new targets for diagnosis and treatment.  

The singularity of Pneumopath lies in its multi-facted approach, its breadth of study of bacterial strains and of individual susceptibility and its computational analysis. 

The project comprises six distinct but overlapping scientific workpackages with different objectives:

Workpackage 1

(lead by the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control) -  a study of the molecular epidemiology and genetic characterisation of antibiotic susceptible and resistant pneumococcal isolates.

Workpackage 2 

(lead by the University of Leicester) - a study into the identification of new host loci confering innate resistance (or susceptibility) to invasive pneumococcal disease.

Workpackage 3

(lead by the University of Siena) - a study into the definition of parameters of pneumococcal infection in the animal host.

Workpackage 4

(lead by Radboud University) - a study into the definition of parameters of pneumococcal infection in in vitro cell culture models.

Workpackage 5

(lead by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Toulouse) - a study of the features of the central metabolism of Steptococcus pneumonaie.

Workpackage 6

(lead by the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Lisbon) - through a semantic web infrastructure, the development of a shared data repository and dedicated data processing facilities for the subsequent analysis of project data.

The collection of experiments and analyses is ideally suited to a European collaboration. 

The exchange and discussion of data from partners' investigations will be discussed at regular project meetings.

Initial findings are expected from month 12.  For information about public dissemination of findings, refer to the project website as the project develops.  A public meeting is planned for month 36.