Project description
Evaluating the mechanical changes impacting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic lung disease caused by air pollution, emphysema and chronic bronchitis, and it is the fourth most common cause of death worldwide. The disease presents with alveolar destruction and shortness of breath due to obstructed and fibrotic airways. Recent studies suggest that mechanical changes are active drivers of COPD. The EU-funded MecCOPD project will employ a previously developed 3D human airway disease model to measure the mechanical properties of COPD airway tissue and determine the contribution of mechanics to disease progression. Establishing the dynamics between mechanical factors and disease markers will uncover the COPD phenotype–mechanics relationship and pave the way for the discovery of new disease mechanisms and drug targets.
Objective
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a chronic lung disease caused by polluted air, is the 4th most common cause of death worldwide. Adding to alveolar destruction, patients suffer from debilitating shortness of breath due to obstructed and fibrotic airways. Currently, this mechanical damage is considered a by-product of airway inflammation; rarely, however, do anti-inflammatory treatments slow disease progression. New therapies are urgently needed. Recent studies suggest that mechanical changes are themselves important active drivers of COPD. I developed an innovative 3D human airway disease model (Lung-Chip) and quantitative measurements of tissue mechanics to show that airway mechanical dysfunction lowers the defense against inflammation-causing pollutants, thereby enabling a viscous cycle of disease aggravation. In addition, my airway Lung-Chip can mimic COPD-like matrix properties, e.g. fibrotic stiffness, and physiological mechanics, including breathing stretch, blood flow and air flow. These advances allow me now to faithfully mimic the airway mechanical microenvironment and systematically study how mechanical factors drive COPD progression. MecCOPD aims to 1) Measure the mechanical properties of COPD airway tissue in pioneering clinically-relevant Lung Chip models using advanced light microscopy and signal processing, 2) Reveal the contribution of mechanics to disease progression by delivering COPD-mimicking mechanical cues and measuring transcriptional, structural and secreted disease markers, 3) Determine the dynamics between mechanical factors and disease markers using statistical models. This interdisciplinary and novel approach will generate fundamental insights into how mechanical factors contribute to COPD progression and will facilitate studying other chronic lung diseases such as cancer and fibrosis. Ultimately, unravelling the COPD phenotype-mechanics relationship will lead to the discovery of new disease mechanisms and drug targets.
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.
- natural sciences physical sciences optics microscopy
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
- natural sciences biological sciences biophysics
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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.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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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
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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
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(opens in new window) ERC-2020-STG
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85764 Neuherberg
Germany
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