Next-Generation Drug Discovery Platform for Targeting Cancer Stem Cell Pathways

Project Information

ACHILLEUS

Grant agreement ID: 101058224

DOI

10.3030/101058224

Project closed

EC signature date 5 April 2022

Start date 1 November 2022

End date 30 April 2026

Funded under

• The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Total cost

€ 2 433 125,00

EU contribution

€ 2 433 125,00

Coordinated by

DEUTSCHES KREBSFORSCHUNGSZENTRUM HEIDELBERG
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ACHILLEUS (Next-Generation Drug Discovery Platform for Targeting Cancer Stem Cell Pathways)

Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2023-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Colorectal cancer is one of the most frequent cancers with a high burden on society. Hundreds of thousands of people are diagnosed each year with colorectal cancer. Despite available treatments, the survival of patients with advanced-stage colorectal cancer is poor. Stemness of neoplastic cells has been proposed as a major factor in treatment resistance and high relapse rates, however, drugs targeting stem cell signaling pathways in cancer are still lacking today. The EU-funded ACHILLEUS project aims to develop and validate a novel drug discovery platform that involves patient-derived organoids (PDOs) and phenotypic machine learning-assisted validation to identify therapeutics to target colorectal cancer stem cell signaling pathways. Researchers will target colorectal cancer stem cell signaling pathways to shift the balance between stem cells and differentiated cells, using the targeting of the Wnt pathway as a proof of principle. The goal is to create a new company based on a phenotypic drug discovery platform for targeting cancer stem cell signaling.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

So far, the ACHILLEUS team has developed a novel assay to measure stem cell signaling activity in cultured human cells. In parallel the team optimized the screening platform using patient-derived organoids (PDOs). This comprises both, the work with PDOs in the laboratory and the analysis of complex phenotypic images of PDOs in dedicated data analysis pipelines.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

On the business development side, the ACHILLEUS project was presented at several occasions and started to network with relevant groups of people. A business plan was set up and the IP strategy was further refined.