Objective
Melanoma (cancer of the melanocyte) kills over 20,000 Europeans each year and incidence continues to rise rapidly. BRAF(V600E) inhibitors have led to clinically significant improvements in outcomes for melanoma patients, yet many patients with metastatic melanoma rapidly succumb to the disease due to eventual chemoresistance, or insensitivity to the drug. Thus, it is critical to identify new therapies that can act alone, or be combined with available treatments for enhanced efficacy and/or to overcome drug resistance.
An important and new therapeutic concept for melanoma is to target the melanocyte lineage. Recent evidence reveals that a melanocyte lineage specific programme maintains melanoma survival, and we have engineered the first animal model in zebrafish to demonstrate that targeting the master melanocyte lineage transcription factor MITF leads to rapid melanoma regression. Thus, understanding and targeting the melanocyte lineage is directly relevant to melanoma, and reveals therapeutically targetable processes.
Our vision is to use live-imaging of the melanocyte lineage as the basis for phenotypic chemical screens in zebrafish to find drugs/leads and identify targetable processes that might elucidate pathways for cancer therapy. Screening for targets of the melanocyte lineage is highly relevant to melanoma because melanocytes are the melanoma cell of origin, and genes that specify the melanocyte stem cells and the lineage during embryogenesis are the same genes that play fundamental roles in cancer. We will use innovative chemical-biology to capture and validate targets in vivo, and perform chemo-preventative and -therapeutic trials in zebrafish melanoma models using known and novel drug-delivery methods.
Ultimately, we aim to translate our most promising drug/leads and targets into the mammalian system, to establish the basis for patent applications and clinical trials.
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: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology skin cancer melanoma
- natural sciences biological sciences developmental biology
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy drug resistance
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology cells technologies stem cells
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine embryology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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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.
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.
ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant
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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.
(opens in new window) ERC-2014-CoG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
EH8 9YL Edinburgh
United Kingdom
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.