Descripción del proyecto
La exposición ambiental a productos químicos afecta seriamente al corazón
Los productos químicos tóxicos son muy comunes en el medio ambiente. Desde plaguicidas a restos de fármacos en el agua, el suelo, el aire y los organismos vivos, los seres humanos están constantemente expuestos a una gran cantidad y variedad de sustancias potencialmente tóxicas. Al mismo tiempo, se ha observado un aumento de la incidencia de enfermedades cardiovasculares, lo que ha llevado a plantear la hipótesis de que ambos fenómenos están vinculados. Para abordar esta cuestión, el equipo del proyecto ALTERNATIVE, financiado con fondos europeos, desarrollará una plataforma que permita identificar, cuantificar y prevenir la exposición conjunta cardiotóxica a productos químicos industriales y fármacos. La plataforma incluirá un modelo tridimensional «in vitro» que imita el tejido cardíaco humano, junto con un sistema de seguimiento fiable de alto rendimiento basado en análisis multiómicos e integrado en una herramienta de aprendizaje automático de evaluación de riesgos.
Objetivo
ALTERNATIVE will develop an innovative platform able to detect the cardiotoxicity of chemicals and their bio-transformation products. The novel platform will enable regulators and industry to identify, quantify and prevent cardiotoxic co-exposures to industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals in a cost-effective way. ALTERNATIVE will particularly focus on cardiotoxic effects on older people, which is of high relevance in view of the ageing EU population and the high spread of cardiovascular diseases.
The platform will consist of a three-dimensional tissue engineering in-vitro model mimicking the human cardiac tissue, coupled with a reliable, high-throughput monitoring system based on multi-omics analyses, and integrated into a Machine Learning (ML) risk assessment tool. In addition, ALTERNATIVE will modify the tissue model to reproduce the aged myocardial tissue and elucidate the adverse effects of chemicals on older people. ALTERNATIVE?s proof-of-concept validation will be performed on well-known mixtures of pollutants, affecting different environmental compartments, and selected via epidemiological, toxicological and modelling expertise.
ALTERNATIVE will also provide systematic reviews of high-quality epidemiological studies to support integrated in vitro and in silico data, giving a more robust basis for regulatory decisions.
The ALTERNATIVE platform will be an innovative tool for complying with the current regulation associated with the assessment of chemical compounds. It will be a new instrument to evaluate unpredictable toxicity due to synergistic effects of different chemicals, additionally worsened by the human ageing process.
By introducing an in vitro cardiac system and ML models, ALTERNATIVE will provide a platform able to refine, reduce and replace the need for animal testing, providing close-to-real scenario information on toxicity and achieving a significant reduction of the associated direct and indirect costs.
Ámbito científico
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugs
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologytissue engineering
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinecardiologycardiovascular diseases
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-LC-GD-2020-3
Régimen de financiación
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinador
10129 Torino
Italia