Project description
3D tumour-on-chip supports study of tumour microbiota and drug resistance
Microbiota are increasingly recognised as playing essential roles in health and disease in many organ systems. The tumour microenvironment is no exception. Intratumoural microbiota may modulate anti-cancer-drug resistance – a significant challenge in oncology – particularly resistance to immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors. Unfortunately, scientists lack the appropriate experimental methods to investigate this phenomenon. As part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on understanding tumour-host interactions, the EU-funded Arturo project aims to bridge this gap, thanks to an innovative state-of-the-art 3D tumour-on-chip model. It will help scientists better understand the role of patient-derived bacteria and their signals on tumours and tumour drug responses.
Objective
"This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on “Understanding (tumour-host interactions)"".
Challenge: Primary or acquired resistance to therapies is a major challenge in oncology. Recent research suggests that intratumoral microbiota may contribute to anti-cancer drug resistance, in particular to immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). However, experimental approaches to address the role of microbiota in human cancers are lacking.
Solution: Project ARTURO will ethically tackle this problem by using an innovative state-of-the-art 3D tumor-on-chip (ToC) model, as part of the emerging field of Micro-Physiological Systems (MPS).
Plan: The role of patient-derived bacteria, and of their postbiotics and released extra-cellular vesicles, in tumor ecosystem behaviors and drug responses, will be deciphered by integrating clinical data, omics analysis, and novel ToC-based information (by live imaging and single-cell transcriptomics). The development of advanced computational methods to extract ToC-based information constitutes a major force and innovation in the field, with high potential to accelerate future applications of ToC technology in clinics. The focus will be on two frequent poorly-understood cancer subtypes: non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and invasive lobular breast cancer (ILC). End-users’ perspectives will be addressed using a co-design approach to develop ethically sound and evidence-based cancer-related innovation and health policies.
Impact: ARTURO results are expected to lead to a deep understanding of processes underpinning tumor-host interactions, helping to conceive novel microbiota-based intervention strategies, in particular for NSCLC and ILC patients. ARTURO will take social, ethnical, cultural, and gender aspects into account, facilitating the translation of ARTURO's innovations to clinical practice and co-design of policies. Ultimately, the ARTURO impacts will be far-reaching, contributing to future developments in cancer precision medicine and diagnostics and to the EU Mission – Cancer."
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. This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
- humanitiesphilosophy, ethics and religionethicsethical principles
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologylung cancer
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologybreast cancer
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespersonalized medicine
- engineering and technologyother engineering and technologiesmicrotechnologyorgan on a chip
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.2.1 - Health Main Programme
Call for proposal
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MISS-2023-CANCER-01
See other projects for this callFunding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
75231 Paris
France