Project description
Cancer treatment with a personalised approach
External-beam radiotherapy is a widely used cancer treatment, but current methods for treatment planning do not consider the unique microstructural and biological characteristics of each patient. Many models are based on in vitro studies, missing the complexity of real-life conditions. The ERC-funded MINIONS project aims to overcome these limitations by developing a new modellistic framework for personalised radiotherapy. This approach utilises clinically compatible, patient-specific models to accurately describe the microscopic characteristics of individual tumours and their interactions with radiation. By creating tailored microstructural and radiobiological models, the MINIONS project seeks to improve treatment outcomes. This innovative approach includes advanced imaging techniques and multi-scale simulations accelerated through AI towards biologically guided treatments, offering a more targeted and effective approach to cancer care.
Objective
External-beam radiotherapy has been established as best practice care in different cancer cases, although current models applied in the clinics to tune the treatment plan dosimetry, as a function of the expected tumour response and radiation-induced toxicity, do not make use of patient-specific information, but rely on radiobiological parameters typically derived from in-vitro experiments, thus abdicating from describing the in-vivo complexity of the pathology. MINIONS is a cutting-edge research programme that investigates and integrates a set of activities to implement patient-specific microstructural and radiobiological models in personalized radiotherapy treatment planning and adaptation towards a detailed description of tumour characteristics of each patient and thus significantly improved tumour control probability. The main challenge of MINIONS is to create, for the first time, a real-time patient-specific model able to describe the microscopic characteristic of the tumour and its interaction with the radiation beam. The scientific activities of MINIONS are to achieve and merge: (i) Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations of Diffusion Magnetic Resonance (DW-MR) signals and radiation-tissue interactions on a library of in-silico cellular substrates to obtain an integrated simulation platform; (ii) real-time Artificial Intelligence-based techniques to accelerate MC simulations and make them compatible with fast treatment planning and adaptation; (ii) advanced DW-MR imaging, to retrieve non-invasively the information required to feed the simulation platform for the implementation of patient-specific microstructural and radiobiological models. The design of in-vivo and ex-vivo tests allows validating the model performance and the collaboration of researchers, engineers and clinicians will drive the use of this innovative strategy in clinical routine, to increase survival and quality of life for a wide range of cancer patients.
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.
- social sciences media and communications graphic design
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pathology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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 - HORIZON ERC 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-2023-STG
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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.