Project description
Off-the-shelf macrophages for drug safety testing
Macrophages are a key component of the human immune system capable of phagocytosing bacteria and secreting antimicrobial agents. Macrophage-based strategies have recently emerged as a novel and promising immunotherapy against both infections and cancer. Funded by the European Research Council, the iPYRO project proposes to extend macrophage applications to drug safety evaluation. Researchers will develop macrophages from human induced pluripotent stem cells and culture them in a bioreactor, offering a standardised cell product as a drug-screening tool. The product is expected to display superior sensitivity compared to existing solutions and production can be scaled up for high-throughput drug screening.
Objective
The iPYRO proposal is built upon the uniqueness of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and recent innovations in the farming of fully defined human macrophages (iMonoMac) using industry compatible bioreactors. Given the growing need for industrial macrophages, iPYRO sets an innovation in the forefront of drug safety evaluations, supplying a unique cell type, which meets the expectations from industry and regulators. The breakthrough innovation of iPYRO will offer a superior, thus highly standardized, economically produced and fully validated “off-the-shelf” macrophage-based cell product to revolutionize the safety of drugs and beyond. To maximize the outcome, iPYRO will assess the regulatory compliance, while further streamlining the iMonoMac product for the envisioned spinout, establishing a proper freedom-to-operate strategy and a suitable business model. The seminal iMonoMac platform along the unique IPR and established contacts to industrial and regulatory stakeholders will pave the transition from academia to industry, introducing for the very first time an iPSC-cell product for the drug safety market market.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug safety
- engineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediationbioreactors
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologycells technologiesstem cells
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantHost institution
30625 Hannover
Germany