Project description
An innovative melanoma model for drug discovery
Cutaneous melanoma is a type of skin cancer that originates in melanocytes, the cells responsible for producing the pigment melanin that gives skin its colour. Early detection and treatment are crucial for improving disease prognosis. However, drug discovery efforts are hampered by inaccurate disease models that do not represent human physiology. Funded by the HORIZON programme, the SkinModelOma project aims to develop a novel preclinical model of melanoma that uses skin tissue grafted in a multicellular spheroid containing melanoma cells, keratinocytes, and monocytes. This model is expected to revolutionise melanoma research and drug discovery by considering factors such as age, gender, and skin type.
Objective
One of the biggest limitations in developing new treatments for cutaneous melanoma relies on overcoming the inefficient screening, often to animal models, which greatly differ from humans. Also, the 3Rs principle limits the number of therapeutics that actually reach the in vivo evaluation of product/drug development or discovery. Thus, there is a high demand for novel pre-clinical platforms, as alternative models to the use of animals, that can screening new treatments. I propose the establishment of a multicompartmental melanoma graft model based on an ex vivo skin tissue grafted with a multicellular spheroid composed by melanoma cells, keratinocytes and monocytes. The ex vivo melanoma graft model, called SkinModelOma, will be a major breakthrough in the study of melanoma tumor growth and on the effectiveness of new therapies in different types of skin and considering gender and age. To the best of my knowledge, this will be the first ex vivo melanoma graft model, and the first model for skin cancer considering age, gender and skin type as important parameters in novel therapies screening for skin cancer. This proposal includes 3 scientific work packages related to 3 objectives and includes transversal work packages related to my training and improviment as a researcher. The objectives are based in the development and standardization of multicellular spheroid, their graft in the human skin and the validation of this model as a screening platform. I believed that the SkinModelOma proposed here will contribute to significant scientific advances in cutaneous melanoma patients management and also to great international recognition that will enable other researchers to benefit from a novel pre-clinical tool.
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.
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologyskin cancermelanoma
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
4200-135 Porto
Portugal