Project description
Enhancing our understanding of inflammatory responses
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the urgent need to address the cytokine/chemokine storms that wreak havoc in the lungs. The tragic loss of over 6.5 million lives underscores the urgency of this challenge. Despite some progress, our understanding of the intricate immune responses remains incomplete. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the B-ACTIVE project aims to unite fundamental and clinical scientists with pharmaceutical companies to explore the impact of posttranslational modifications of chemokine ligands and receptors. B-ACTIVE seeks to foster experts with a translational and interdisciplinary mindset. The project’s goal is to enhance our comprehension of inflammatory responses, pinpoint the right drug targets, and actively contribute to pharmaceutical development, ultimately improving patient treatment.
Objective
A number of pharmaceuticals targeting cytokine/chemokine storms in lungs are in development due to an urgent new unmet medical need strengthened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The recent death of > 6.5 million people shows that treating excessive inflammation is still a major problem. Our incomplete understanding of complex immune reactions and resulting doubts on correct drug target identification prohibit efficient drug development and patient treatment. Proper control of inflammation is crucial during infection, wound healing, auto-inflammation, auto-immunity, transplant rejection, etc. Chemokines and their receptors drive leukocyte migration and activation and inflammation. Although the ligands and receptors were identified in the last 3 decades, increasing fundamental, preclinical and sporadic clinical evidence indicates that posttranslational regulation of chemokine ligands and receptors may impact the inflammatory reaction significantly. In this B-ACTIVE network, fundamental and clinical scientists and companies will study the impact of posttranslational modifications of chemokine ligands and receptors and train 10 early stage researchers (ESRs) to future experts in this domain with a translational and interdisciplinary mindset and a network founded already in graduate education. The ESRs will characterize interactions between ligands, receptors and glycosaminoglycans, study signaling pathways and recognize their importance in inflammatory reactions. ESRs will be trained in the complexity of inflammatory responses from basic science to clinical applications and industrial development. B-ACTIVE will improve our understanding of inflammatory reactions, aid in identifying the right drug targets and participate in pharmaceutical development, for better patient treatment with more new active pharmaceutical ingredients being evaluated clinically. The proposed projects are aligned with this overall objective and research strategies of academic and industrial partners.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugs
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiologypandemics
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA virusescoronaviruses
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN - HORIZON TMA MSCA Doctoral NetworksCoordinator
3000 Leuven
Belgium