Project description
Platform for probiotic and drug development
Over the past decades, research has revealed the crucial role of gut microbiota in regulating immune responses and influencing drug absorption. Probiotics, live microorganisms that can benefit human health, are widely used in disease prevention and treatment. However, replicating the complex gut microenvironment in lab conditions remains a major challenge, limiting the reliability of current research models. This gap hampers the development of effective probiotics and therapeutics. With this in mind, the ERC-funded PROMETEO project will develop a millifluidic organ-on-a-chip platform that integrates probiotics, gut epithelium, and the immune system. This innovation aims to revolutionise probiotic and drug development, reducing reliance on costly and time-consuming trials.
Objective
Over the last decades, the gut intestinal microflora and other microbial communities present in our body raised a strong interest in the health research domain as it was discovered their possible relation to the pathophysiology of major organs and systems. Gut epithelial cells, together with our resident microbiota, are involved in the modulation of the host immune system and represent the first line of adsorption of drugs and nutraceuticals. In parallel to microbiota studies, a great effort has been devoted to assess the role of the “probiotics”, live microorganisms that, administered in adequate amounts, are able to confer a benefit to the host health. Probiotics are currently widely used in the prevention/treatment of many diseases. One critical point that is still an issue in the characterisation of new potential probiotics is the difficulty in mimicking with high reliability the gut microenvironment condition using animal models or the current in vitro tools, poorly representative of the real in vivo situation. This gap motivates the need for the development of alternative research tools, such as the fluidic devices, to study the mechanisms at play in human gut microenvironment and contribute to the success rate of expensive, risky and time-consuming pre-clinical and clinical trials. In this frame, our PROMETEO project aims to perform the technical and commercial feasibility of an integrated probiotic/gut epithelium/immune system millifluidic platform, based on a patented organ-on-a-chip technological device, providing the basis for a new generation of innovative solutions for probiotics/drug development. PROMETEO will be run by a consortium between Politecnico di Milano and AAT-Advanced Analytical Technologies, a forefront SME specialized in promoting innovation in the probiotic sector, thus combining a solid technological expertise and an in-depth knowledge of the market.
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.
- medical and health sciences basic medicine physiology pathophysiology
- engineering and technology other engineering and technologies microtechnology organ on a chip
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology
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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)
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.
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-POC2
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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.
20133 Milano
Italy
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.