Project description
Light-activated cure for rare eye tumour
Uveal melanoma, a rare eye tumour, robs patients of their sight. It also carries a grim 50 % mortality rate due to liver metastases. Current treatments exacerbate the issue, leading to a lower quality of life for those affected. In this context, the EIC-funded PACT4EYE project will introduce photoactivated chemotherapy (PACT) with a ruthenium-containing prodrug (Ru-MTI). This approach is activated by light. It aims to revolutionise uveal melanoma treatment. Unlike traditional treatments, PACT thrives in oxygen-deprived tumour tissues, enhancing efficacy. The project employs patient-derived models in zebrafish and mice to optimise treatment response and minimise systemic toxicity. With promising preclinical data, PACT4EYE sets the stage for attracting venture capital and funding agencies.
Objective
"Uveal melanoma (UM) is a rare tumor of the eye; its current treatment leads to lower quality-of-life for the patients (sight loss), 50% of whom eventually die from metastases to the liver. The PACT4EYE project aims at the first clinical development of a new technique called photoactivated chemotherapy (PACT) for the treatment of UM. It makes use of a new, patented ruthenium-containing prodrug (Ru-MTI) that must be activated by green or red light to become toxic. PACT uses laser light irradiation at the tumor site to activate the prodrug locally and destroy the tumor with low side effects for the patient. Its innovative mode of activation, based on a dioxygen-independent bond cleavage photoreaction, makes PACT treatment with Ru-MTI fundamentally different from state-of-the-art UM treatment that rely on O2 activation. Unlike them, Ru-MTI can still be activated in hypoxic tumor tissues, which are usually more resistant to existing treatment and more threatening for the patients. The consortium will screen and optimize the tumor response and systemic toxicity of PACT treatment with Ru-MTI in primary UM eye tumors and their liver metastases, using patient-derived tumor models engrafted in zebrafish embryos (ZF) and mice. Once the most responsive tumors are identified in ZF, the treatment will be optimised in sub-cutaneous mice models and further validated in an ""orthotopic"" mouse PDX model (for example, a liver metastasis in the liver), which represents one of the most predictive pre-clinical tumor models available to date. These results will allow our commercial partner to define a ""minimum viable product"" for PACT treatment of UM tumors with Ru- MTI, and to develop a business plan and a communication plan towards the first clinical application of ruthenium-based PACT. The project will gather all pre-clinical data necessary to convince venture capital and/or funding agencies to fund clinical phase I studies and further product development after the project."
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 clinical medicine oncology skin cancer melanoma
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine embryology
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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.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
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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.
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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.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2023-TRANSITION-01
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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.
2311 EZ Leiden
Netherlands
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