CINBIO

Metastasis remains accountable for 9 out of 10 fatalities within cancer disease. However, the mechanisms governing the onset of metastasis are far from being fully understood. Notably, metastases are predominantly clonal and arise from a single cell. 3DSecret will investigate metastasis from a radically new perspective, with the overarching goal of unravelling stochastic patterns at the single-cell level with predictive and prognostic capacity. Critically, defining the hallmarks of metastasis from holistic studies of single circulating tumour cells (CTCs), thus dissecting tumour heterogeneity, has the power to revolutionise cancer treatment and diagnosis. This will pave the way for game-changing discoveries in what is one of the holy grails of modern clinical science. To achieve our goal, 3DSecret will use a set of key enabling technologies including microfluidics, nanosensors, genomics, and artificial intelligence (AI). Microfluidics will drive the isolation of single CTCs from whole blood samples of 60+ metastatic breast cancer patients. These will be grown on-chip to form 3D spheroids, thus allowing comprehensive genomic and transcriptomic studies of single-cell origin while bypassing the errors typically introduced by single-cell genome amplification. The genomic and transcriptomic data will be combined with clinical information, single-cell growth profiles and dynamic metabolomic analyses obtained by the use of nanosensors and SERS, to develop a multimodal AI analytical tool capable of identifying unknown patterns driving metastasis. The bold assumption that there could be stochastic patterns driving metastasis, cancer evolution and malignancy, makes the approach of 3DSecret exceptionally high-risk, high-gain. We are confident that such a breakthrough would lead to a major paradigm shift with significant implications in biology, physics, disruptive technologies such as AI, and critically, in the medical arena and patient care.

Centre PI: David Posada

Financing institution: EUROPEAN COMMISSION // HORIZON-EIC-2022-PATHFINDEROPEN-01 – code: 101099066

Total funding: 3.405.245€

Centre budget: 513.750€

Execution period: 2022 – 2025

Year granted: 2022

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BIOCELLPHE provides frontier scientific and technological advancements to generate a breakthrough technology realizing the identification of proteins (i.e. phenotyping) as diagnostic biomarkers at single-cell level with unmatched sensitivity, multiplexing capabilities and portability.

Centre PI: Isabel Pastoriza

Financing institution: EUROPEAN COMMISION // H2020-Eu 1.2.1

Total funding: 3.577.312,50€

Centre budget: 500.000€

Execution period: 2021 – 2025

Year granted: 2021

Referencia: 965018

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Lung cancer accounts for the majority of cancer-related deaths in the world. Although most lung tumours are classified as the less aggressive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) type, late diagnosis leads to dismal outcomes. The EU-funded MI-SCAN project aims to improve the non-invasive detection of early stage (I, II) lung cancer using miRNA biomarkers. Scientists will develop a microfluidic device that uses miRNA probes combined with gold nanoparticles to target miRNA biomarkers present in lung cancer cells. A surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection methodology is applied to achieve a sensitive detection. This biosensor works with non-invasive sputum samples, overcoming the laborious and invasive gold standard methods currently employed for lung cancer diagnosis.

Centre PI: Isabel Pastoriza

Financing institution: EUROPEAN COMMISION

Total funding: 172.932€

Centre budget: 172.932€

Execution period: 2021-2023

Year granted: 2020

Referencia: 894227

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Proteins and polysaccharides (complex carbohydrates) are nature’s polymers; large molecules made of repeating small units (monomers). In the case of proteins, the units are peptides, whilst in the case of polysaccharides, the units are saccharides or simpler sugars. The EU-funded PEPSA-MATE project has created a multidisciplinary team including early stage researchers to derive novel products from nature’s building blocks using rational design. The team is creating a library of nanopeptides and nanosaccharides and an innovative computer platform to ‘discover’ advanced biopolymers for biomedical and commercial applications. Besides being eco-friendly alternatives to conventional fossil fuel-derived plastics, they will also be biofunctional and biocompatible for use as drug-delivery platforms.

Centre PI: Verónica Salgueiriño

Financing institution: EUROPEAN COMMISSION – H2020-MSCA-RISE-2019)

Total funding: 961.400€

Centre budget: 58.900€

Execution period: 2021 – 2025

Year granted: 2020

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) & multi-drug resistance, whereby pathogens evolve to resist antibiotic drugs, is designated by WHO one of the top 10 health threats of our time and is a top 3 priority health threat requiring EU level coordination. AMR was estimated to be linked to 4.95 million deaths in 2019. The next global pandemic could be a multi-drug resistant bacterium, or emergence of ‘pan-drug’ resistant strains (resistant to all existing drugs). Alternative therapeutic approaches are proving to be expensive and slow to develop, whilst also facing the risk of evolving strains. The innate immunity presents the strongest potential to tackle AMR as it can generate antimicrobial molecules and proteins that directly inhibit microbial survival. Inducing such proteins has shown effective antimicrobial activity against bacteria, viruses, fungi & protozoa. Building on this approach, leading professors and researchers from 9 Universities and research institutes are collaborating with 7 medical and industry partners representing 9 EU countries to introduce a novel class of immune system inducers able to enhance the body’s own innate microbial defence mechanisms to combat AMR and reduce incidence of the 13 listed most dangerous infections (including 2 of the top 3 priority-1 infections).

IN-ARMOR will optimise an already developed drug platform using Computer Aided Drug Design, and in-silico approaches, in tandem with a nanotech-based drug delivery system for the first target indication. The developed therapy will be pre-clinically validated for safety and efficacy in-vitro and in vivo to complete all investigational Medicinal Product requirements. Upon completion, IN-ARMOR will be prepared for clinical validation. Upon commercialisation, IN-AMOR could potentially save more 4Mn lives worldwide and result in the significant burden reduction of antibiotic development with long-term cost reduction impact of €107Bn, whilst reducing the global disease burden by 96.84Mn DAL

Centre PI: Miguel  Correa  Duarte

Financing institution: EUROPEAN COMMISSION – HORIZON-HLTH-2022-DISEASE-06-two-stage

Total funding: 5,9 M€

Centre budget: 390.000€

Execution period: 2023 – 2027

Year granted: 2022

Referencia: 101080889