Project description
Advancing fluorophores for research and diagnosis
Research and diagnostic methods often utilise fluorophores, molecules that absorb light at a specific wavelength and then emit light at a longer wavelength. Fluorophores help healthcare professionals track biomolecules, visualise cellular structures and detect disease markers. However, they often suffer from issues like photobleaching, phototoxicity and limited functional versatility. The ERC-funded BIO-LINKER project aims to address conventional fluorophore shortcomings and improve assay reliability through a novel class of linker compounds that allow selective labelling of biological targets with tuneable properties. This approach is expected to enhance fluorophore performance and assay reliability across multiple research and biomedical fields.
Objective
Fluorescence techniques are indispensable tools at the heart of basic research, medical diagnostics, cancer research, personalized medicine and drug screening. Their merits are not limited by physical instrumentation, but by the performance and properties of the employed fluorescent probes. All commercially available fluorophores – with a market potential of 2 billion € per year and an annual growth rate of ~8% – suffer from three fundamental problems: (i) Phototoxicity and poor signal quality, (ii) requirement for functional properties such as blinking emission, sensor capabilities or high photostability, and (iii) their limitations to be used in more than one specific application, e.g. for lipid-staining, organelle marking, DNA sequencing or single-molecule detection. Consequences of these problems can be loss of information in biomedical assays (e.g. via a too rapidly vanishing signal) resulting for example in an incorrect medical diagnosis or false positive hits in drug screening. My lab has developed a solution to these fundamental problems within the context of my ERC starting grant “SM-IMPORT”. We established a versatile class of ‘linker’ compounds that allow selective labelling of biological targets in vitro and in vivo with a (commercial) fluorophore, which becomes tuneable in all of its properties via the linker. With such a simple strategy, users in all branches of academic and industry research, but also in biomedicine will be able to modify properties of commercially available fluorophores preserving their standard labelling protocols – reducing assay costs and improving reliability. In this proof-of-concept grant, I want to explore the potential of our established linker library for commercial use.
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: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics DNA
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering sensors
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
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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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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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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
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.
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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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.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-POC1
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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.
44227 Dortmund
Germany
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.