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Lectures at Thomas Jefferson University
Prof. Stefania Boccia, Full Professor of Hygiene at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and PROPHET coordinator, held in March 2025 a series of lectures at Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), Philadelphia, USA, presenting key findings from the PROPHET Project. During her visit, Prof. Boccia presented a case study on the potential use of Health Impact Assessment to evaluate and support the implementation of personalized prevention strategies, focusing on BRCA testing in Italy. 
The study revealed key challenges in the full implementation of the test, including regional disparities in the availability of testing and variations in the adoption of preventive measures across the country. It highlighted that, in an ideal scenario where recent preventive guidelines are applied nationwide, widespread BRCA testing could lead to a 34% reduction in breast and ovarian cancer cases and a 39.8% decrease in five-year mortality rates. These findings emphasize the need to overcome these barriers to ensure more equitable access to personalized preventive strategies—a crucial step toward more equitable and effective personalized prevention.
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Foresting Synergies with Joint Action
The event was held in Turin, Italy, during the EuCanScreen Joint Action Annual meeting, on May 12, 2025. The goal was to emphasize the importance of European collaboration in cancer screening and prevention. It was organized by the EuCanScreen project and in addition to all collaborating partners, Prof. Boccia, PROPHET coordinator, was also present.
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LifeScience 4EU Conference on the future of Life Sciences. Technology, innovation and policy: together for Europe’s competitiveness
Dr. Angelo Pezzullo, from the coordinating team, represented PROPHET in this conference and contributed to the discussion of innovation in prevention. The event was held in Krakow, Poland, May 15 and 16, 2025.
The meeting attracted leaders from all over Europe – from science to healthcare, through industry and public administration. Everyone agreed: the future of the life science sector depends on our ability to combine competences, share knowledge and make bold decisions.
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19th European Patients’ Rights Day
Hosted by MEP Brando Benifei (S&D, Italy), the high-level conference took place on 15 May 2025 at the European Parliament in Brussels, under the patronage of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and organised by Cittadinanzattiva – Active Citizenship Network (ACN).
This high-level event, realised in the framework of the European Year of Digital Citizenship Education, gathered policymakers, patient advocates, researchers, institutions, and industry leaders to explore the transformative potential of health data sharing for patients, healthcare systems, and medical research in the European Union. The event showcased real-world initiatives – like PROPHET – addressing concretely ethical, legal, and social implications of and responsible health data reuse, spotlighting the importance of returning value to patients and enabling better healthcare decisions.
During this high-level roundtable, Sara Farina (Resident in Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health at UCSC) highlighted:
- The importance of personalised prevention, highlighting how combining genetic, biological, and lifestyle data can improve individual risk assessment and preventive care.
- The key challenges including citizens’ concerns around privacy and the need for clear communication and legal frameworks to build trust.
The PROPHET project advances efforts in this way with the broader goal to support the definition and implementation of personalised prevention approaches in EU health systems. A video was also released by ACN with the speakers interviewed during the event.
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ECHoS – Cancer Mission Fair
Dr. Angelica Valz Gris, from the coordinating team, represented PROPHET at the inaugural Cancer Mission Fair, a landmark event uniting voices in the European fight against cancer, took place in Warsaw, Poland, May 20-22, 2025.
This event explored the power of stakeholder engagement, synergies to improve collaboration between EU projects, citizen and patient involvement, and celebrated innovative initiatives transforming cancer care and research at the national level. Organized as part of the Establishing Cancer Mission Hubs: Networks and Synergies (ECHoS) project, in collaboration with the European Commission’s Cancer Mission, the event also involved the PROPHET project.