Objective
"Cancer is a devastating disease affecting 1 in 3 people in their lifetime. The incidence is rising because of our aging population and causes a huge economic impact on our society because of hospitalization and lost productivity. Radiotherapy alone or in combination with surgery and/or chemotherapy is used in ~50% of all patients and uses ionizing radiation to induce DNA breaks that are lethal to cells. While significant progress has been made, radiotherapy is often limited because of side-effects in normal tissues and tumor control often fails because of resistance and metastases. Novel treatment paradigms are urgently needed. Among the key classical biological factors that determine radiation response in normal and tumor cells are the 4R; Reoxygenation, Repopulation, Redistribution and Repair. They are determined by intrinsic (genetic) as well as extrinsic factors from the tumor microenvironment and underlie tumor heterogeneity a hallmark of cancers and a decisive factor in clinical response. Yet, standard cancer treatments are largely based on the flawed assumption that tumors are homogenous within and between patients. We hypothesized that NOTCH signaling and tumor hypoxia cause tumor heterogeneity and are tumor selective therapeutic targets. First we will study key biological mechanisms that determine intra tumor heterogeneity, second we will establish their role in therapy response and third we will exploit this knowledge to enhance radiotherapy and provide proof of concept of a highly innovative approach to selectively activate cancer therapeutics targeting the NOTCH stem cell pathway in therapy resistant tumor cells without adverse effects in normal tissues.
DIRECT interrogates the molecular details of key cancer therapy response parameters providing opportunities for the next generation of tumor cell specific treatments that improve disease outcome."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine surgery
- natural sciences physical sciences nuclear physics
- social sciences economics and business economics production economics productivity
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology cells technologies stem cells
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
ERC-2013-CoG
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Host institution
6200 MD Maastricht
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.