Cancer is the second cause of death in the western world and it is expected to become the leading one in developing countries in the next future. The long-term outcome of BaCTher is the improvement of the cancer treatment that can overcome the intrinsic limitations of the current therapies through the development of a new promising therapeutic strategy. The specific hypothesis behind the proposed research is that an attenuated Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (STMΔznuABC) is able to influence the tumor microenvironment (TME) reprogramming or re-educating the immune response, and inducing a shift from protumorigenic inflammation to anticancer immunity, which results in a tumor growth control. This hypothesis is based on the observation that: 1) there is compelling scientific evidence of the effect of bacteria, and in particular Salmonella, against cancer growth; 2) STMΔznuABC is able to reduce cancer growth and to increase the average life expectancy in a mammary adenocarcinoma Balb/c mice model; 3) STMΔznuABC is able to penetrate and proliferate into the tumor cells inhibiting the proliferation of tumor cells at 24h post-treatment. Three specific aims are designed to: 1) investigate the relationship between STMΔznuABC and TME; 2) characterize the mechanism of STMΔznuABC antitumor activity; 3) validate the results obtained in the preliminary studies using alternative in vivo models. The Experienced Researcher (ER), from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), Italy, will spend one year at the Cancer Immunobiology Section of the Cancer and Inflammation Program (CIP), Center for Cancer Research (CCR), division of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Bethesda, MD USA, for mutual exchange of skills and know-how that will be transferred back to the beneficiary organisation (ISS), contributing to the establishment of a wider long-term collaboration between the ER and host institutions.

Adolescence and pre-adolescence are crucial moments for the promotion of mental health and the prevention of mental disorders, taking into account that up 50% of common mental disorders have their onset in adolescence, around 14 years of age. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that, worldwide, up to 20% of children and adolescents suffer from a problem of emotional development or behavior and one out of eight suffer from a mental disorder.The project aims to provide secondary school students the appropriate skills to monitor and manage their level of mental well-being, through the development of a pedagogical tool that will use as a basis the good practices and expertise in the field of mental well-being exchanged among the partnership. Partners will share knowledge concerning mental well being management in school as well as strategies to involve in the best way all the actors that play an important role in the mental well-being of students, i.e. teachers and family members. Project objectives are:1) to exchange good practices for mental well-being management in the school context, in order to collect methodologies aimed at the students’ well-being with the direct support of the actors involved in the well-being and learning process of students i.e. teachers and parents;2) to provide students with tools to manage mental well-being, improve communication skills, increase self awareness and problem solving abilities;3) to produce high quality resources for professionals and improve their competencies to deal with diversified groups of students, making use of new technologies and learner-centered pedagogical approaches.With the active participation of students, the pedagogical resources collected among the partnership will be adapted and transferred to multimedia tools (website, videos, apps), available in 5 European languages, in order to have an innovative and more attractive approach with the target group and cater their needs and expectations.The analysis carried out in the first phase of the project will help to identify the key needs of students while the exchange of good practices will facilitate a more efficient strategy to address target groups’ well-being needs. These results will provide a ground on which build the educational resources and adapt the programme. The training activities targeting teachers will help the first target group to better understand well-being needs of students, the best approaches to operate within school settings and guarantee the well-being of their learners, the use of ICTs in educational contexts. Teachers will deliver focus groups with students in order to identify the most appropriate communication methods for their age group and to develop multimedia material.The pilot course together with the multimedia resources based on the manual will increase students’ psychological well-being and quality of life, thus fostering a healthy environment for teaching and learning. The activities foreseen in the project will produce the following results: - improved learner-centered resources for well-being management in the school context;- improved competencies of teachers/educators in managing mental well-being in school settings by using different approaches and ICT-based methodologies,- increased ability of secondary school students to manage their mental well-being.