Project description
Innovations in hyperimmunisation to combat viral threats
Amid the threat of viral outbreaks, conventional therapies fall short due to limited efficacy against rapidly evolving pathogens. Current immunisation strategies struggle with the ever-changing landscape of viral subfamilies, leaving a critical gap in our defences. In this context, the EU-funded e-FabRIC project will develop a hyperimmunisation strategy targeting the sarbecovirus subfamily. It will generate equine immunoglobulins with unprecedented breadth of neutralisation. Using purified F(ab’)2 fragments, a proven pharmaceutical product, the project uses a mosaic antigen to stimulate diverse antibody responses in individual horses. By pooling these specificities, e-FabRIC’s innovative approach yields a potent immunotherapy with broad viral neutralising activity. This breakthrough tackles threats like COVID-19 and lays the groundwork for combating future viral outbreaks.
Objective
e-FabRIC will develop a new hyperimmunization strategy for generating high titers equine immunoglobulins having a broad neutralizing specificity against viral targets belonging to same subfamily phylogenic tree. The viral subfamily selected to demonstrate the unique benefits of this innovative way to induce highly anti-viral active antibodies is the sarbecovirus subfamily. The equine antibodies will be processed as purified F(ab’)2 fragments, a well-known pharmaceutical product with a strong historical safety record in human patients. The F(ab’)2 antibody fragments generated by e-FabRIC are expected to display a unique and very wide neutralizing activity spectrum. This new property will be the synergistic outcome of the immunization with a nanoparticle co-displaying 8 different sarbecovirus RBD subunits (designated as “mosaic antigen”) and the natural immunogenetic diversity present in individual horses. In each individual horse, the mosaic antigen immunization will drive the generation and maturation of antibodies highly focused on conserved epitope structures shared by the different sarbecovirus RBD subunits and associated with viral neutralization. As each horse's own immunogenetics will mature the mosaic antigen-specific antibodies in a different way, several equine individual antibody specificities will be pooled in order to expand the overall broad viral neutralizing activity of the final pharmaceutical product. The combined multiplicity of individual antibody response diversities and the highly focused antibody responses induced by the mosaic antigen will be the basis of a broadly potent, immunotherapy pharmaceutical F(ab’)2-based product able to significantly reduce the clinical and societal impact of any emergence of a new human sarbecovirus outbreak. The scientific and technical learnings of this new and powerful immunization strategy will be applicable to other viral families from which human infectious threats may arise.
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 basic medicine immunology immunisation
- medical and health sciences health sciences infectious diseases RNA viruses coronaviruses
- engineering and technology nanotechnology nano-materials
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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.2.1 - Health
MAIN PROGRAMME
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HORIZON.2.1.4 - Infectious Diseases, including poverty-related and neglected diseases
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Topic(s)
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.
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-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
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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) HORIZON-HLTH-2023-DISEASE-03
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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.
69007 Lyon
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
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.