Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Tackling the Achilles Heel of Immunotherapy: Validating imaging biomarkers and targeting the immunological niche of tumour hypoxia

Objective

Lung cancer is the most common cause of death from cancer worldwide with 1.59 million deaths annually and it places the highest economic burden of all cancers on the EU at €18.8billion. These figures call for a major transformation of the therapeutic management of lung cancer. The recent developments in immunotherapy give new hope. At present a significant minority of patients benefit from immune therapy, which remains not curative when delivered alone. It is thus clear that improving the efficacy of immune therapy is needed as well as the identification of predictive biomarkers. Combining immunotherapy with radiotherapy improves effectiveness, but resistance is still common, most probably because of hypoxia. In HYPOXIMMUNO, we will open up a new paradigm in treating metastatic NSCLC. I will provide for the first time (pre)clinical proof of concept of (i) highly innovative CT-based radiomics and PET-hypoxia imaging patient stratification tools and (ii) a tri-modal curative hypoxia-targeting treatment strategy that complements current immunotherapy and radiotherapy approaches. This tri-modal curative treatment strategy is based on (1) high precision Stereotactic Radiotherapy (SABR) to kill cancer cells and trigger the immune system, combined with (2) a hypoxia-activated prodrug to target the hypoxic tumour cells resistant to immunotherapy and (3) a promising and innovative tumour specific antibody (Ab)-based immunotherapy (immunocytokine L19-IL2 to “push the accelerator” with or without a checkpoint inhibitor to “release the break”) to form a powerful synergistic immuno-oncology strategy. In HYPOXIMMUNO, I envision to lay the foundation for the next breakthrough in oncology, by improving patient selection and developing highly innovative cancer therapies that target hypoxia, to improve the quality of life and prolong survival of cancer patients, in particular patients with metastatic NSCLC (watch the animation summarising the project: https://youtu.be/oP9Gp4a0b_Q(opens in new window)).

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.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

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.

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.

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.

ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2015-AdG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

UNIVERSITEIT MAASTRICHT
Net EU contribution

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.

€ 2 402 499,00
Address
MINDERBROEDERSBERG 4
6200 MD Maastricht
Netherlands

See on map

Region
Zuid-Nederland Limburg (NL) Zuid-Limburg
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

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.

€ 2 402 499,00

Beneficiaries (2)

My booklet 0 0