Objective
Ocular neovascularization (NV) is the pathological feature common to Retinopathy of Prematurity, Diabetic Retinopathy, and Age-related Macular Degeneration. Collectively, these diseases are the leading cause of blindness in developed countries, and even more relevant due to the increased life expectancy. Current therapies can delay the progression of the disease, but do not restore the vision already lost. Therefore, there is a need for new, more efficient anti-angiogenic therapies. Gene therapy has been successfully used in several ocular disease paradigms. Most gene therapy strategies have used viral vectors due to their gene transfer efficiency. Nevertheless, viral vectors have several limitations, the most important ones the risk of random integration into the genome and potential severe immune response. Non-viral vectors have the potential to overcome the drawbacks associated with viral vectors but, to date, non-viral vectors still lag behind viral ones in gene transfer efficiency. This proposal aims to address both the need for new therapeutic strategies to treat ocular NV and development of new non-viral vectors optimized for ocular gene therapy. This dual approach would be feasible due to the multidisciplinary background of the Coordinator of this proposal in gene therapy, biology and and materials science. This project will study the potential of combining the inhibition of angiogenic factors and the expression of anti-angiogenic factors, delivered by the developed non-viral vectors. The outcome of this project would be two-fold: 1) non-viral vectors with an efficiency comparable to viral ones and 2) new therapeutic strategies to prevent loss of vision caused by the progression of ocular NV. This can significantly contribute to European excellence by decreasing the knowledge gap and generate added value products that can simultaneously have an economic impact but mostly have a social impact, specially in those ailing from diseases causing blindness
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 medical biotechnology genetic engineering gene therapy
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine ophthalmology retinopathy
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes
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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.
FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG
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.
Coordinator
8005 139 Faro
Portugal
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.