Objective
Cancer evades the immune system by generating an immunosuppressive tumour-microenvironment through various mechanisms to enable unhampered growth. Recent breakthroughs in blocking one of these mechanisms – the so called ‘immune checkpoints’ – put cancer immunotherapy back in the spotlights. Although promising, clinical benefits of these checkpoint inhibitors as single treatment has been limited to a subset of patients and goes along with unwanted systemic autoimmune toxicity. I hypostasize, that attacking the tumour microenvironment from multiple immunological angles simultaneously by local, conditional, and multimodal immunomodulation will greatly improve success of cancer immunotherapy and patient wellbeing. To achieve this, I will develop a highly defined synergistic chemistry-based molecular therapeutic toolbox to specifically attack cancer, acting on effector T cells, macrophages as well as tumour cells simultaneously. In this highly multidisciplinary endeavour I will (i) generate novel multifunctional dendritic cell targeted anti-cancer vaccines to ‘educate’ the patient’s immune system to recognise the tumour, (ii) I will develop conditional, targeted immune checkpoint inhibitors to release the immunosuppressive break specifically within the tumour microenvironment without the risk of autoimmunity and (iii) I will generate chemical tools to locally eliminate the tumour-associated macrophages to tear down a major immunosuppressive barrier. I will do so utilizing the novel ModimAb technology which I developed to obtain functionalized antibody fragments. These individual therapeutic tools will allow me and my research team to explore uncharted tumour immunological territories in vitro as well as in vivo, greatly advancing the field of cancer immunotherapy. But above all, together they will form a highly dedicated symbiotic immunotherapeutic regime which will be extremely effective without systemic side effects, dramatically improving patient care.
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.
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology skin cancer melanoma
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs vaccines
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology immunotherapy
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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-STG - Starting 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-2015-STG
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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.
6525 GA NIJMEGEN
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.