Objective
More than 3.5 million people are newly diagnosed with heart failure every year in Europe with a long-term prognosis of 50% mortality within 4 years. There is a major need for more innovative, regenerative therapies that have the potential to change the course of disease. In the ERC-Extracellular Vesicle-Inspired CArdiac REpair (EVICARE), I hypothesized that we can recondition heart failure by stimulating cardiac repair with extracellular vesicles that are derived from progenitor cells. From the EVICARE application results, however, we realized that enhancing the therapeutic load of EVs will enhance their functional effect size to treat chronic diseases. In TOP-EVICARE
(Technology Of Protein delivery in Extracellular Vesicle-induced Cardiac Repair), I aim to explore active loading and release systems that will allow protein therapeutic loading in extracellular vesicles to stimulate myocardial repair.
Within this project, I aim to:
I. Validate our innovative EV-loading strategy by assessing biodistribution and functional delivery in vivo, and exploring the potential for upscaling GMP production to meet industry standards and requirements;
II. Conduct a comprehensive intellectual property (IP) landscape analysis to establish freedom-to-operate (FTO) and ensure that our technology can be commercialized without infringing on existing patents;
III. Execute an in-depth market, competitor, and stakeholder analysis to identify strategic opportunities and potential challenges in the EV-based therapeutic landscape; and
IV. Develop a robust and detailed business plan to effectively guide the commercialization of our loading technology, thus bringing a transformative solution to the treatment of various diseases.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept GrantsHost institution
3584 CX Utrecht
Netherlands