Project description
Novel biomarkers of liver disease
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a condition associated with excessive accumulation of fat in the liver of people who do not consume significant amounts of alcohol. It is a growing health problem worldwide and closely linked to metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, as well as an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and liver-related morbidity and mortality. Current diagnosis and disease severity stratification require an invasive liver biopsy. Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the ALIVE project proposes to develop a technology to isolate and analyse liver-specific extracellular vesicles as a source of NAFLD biomarkers in blood in a non-invasive manner.
Objective
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a disease of alarmingly increasing prevalence, associated with metabolic and cardiovascular complications and morbid mortality. The disease spectrum covers from a simple steatosis to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). With estimated 25% of population having NAFLD, it makes it the most common liver disease in the world. While diagnosing and stratifying NAFLD and NASH is of high priority to identify subjects with increased risk for cardio-vascular complications, the gold standard of current diagnostics is an invasive liver biopsy. Recently discovered extracellular vesicles (EVs) have shown high potential to become novel source of non-invasive biomarkers as they are loaded with the same molecular information as their parental cells (proteins, metabolites, RNAs). Molecular information of liver-derived EVs could be a great source of liver specific biomarkers, that are obtainable in circulation and are suitable for non-invasive diagnostics. However, analysing biochemical/omics profiles of tissue specific EVs in biofluids is an unsolved challenge and has not been realized in routine clinical diagnostics yet. In this project ALIVE we propose to develop a technology capable of isolating cell and organ specific EVs from biological samples and perform their omics analysis and to apply this technology in the proof-of-concept investigation of potential biomarkers of liver disease in blood. ALIVE is a great opportunity for the experience researcher Dr. Andrea Capuano to gain new technical and transferable skills, exchange knowledge with the host, an innovative European startup EXIT071 and secure a leadership position in innovative ecosystem of Europe.
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.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
You need to log in or register to use this function
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
2313 NV Leiden
Netherlands