Project description
Innovative immunotherapy for breast cancer
Immunotherapy harnesses the body’s immune system to fight cancer, showing success in some solid tumours but limited effectiveness in breast cancer. Despite available treatments, breast cancer remains a major global health challenge, with 30 % of patients developing metastases. This issue is worsened in low-resource regions due to high costs and limited access. The ERC-funded END-BC project focuses on adoptive cell therapy (ACT), including CAR-T, a promising yet ineffective and expensive option for patients with breast cancer. Researchers aim to develop a novel B cell-based ACT enhanced by biomaterials to improve efficacy, reduce side effects and lower costs. This research will assess the commercial and technical feasibility of this innovative approach for treating breast cancer.
Objective
Breast cancer (BC) is the most diagnosed cancer worldwide, and despite treatment availability, the disease remains challenging to treat, causing substantial adverse side effects and fatalities globally. The lack of efficacy and inaccessibility of standard care supports this demand for better treatments. This is demonstrated by resection surgery and current (neo)adjuvant therapies such as chemotherapy exhibiting inadequacies resulting in 30% of BC patients having metastases. These percentages are even higher in low human index regions due to inaccessibility, cost and growing populations. Adoptive cell therapy (ACT), such as CAR-T, is a category of emerging immunotherapies expected to impact oncology by transferring engineered immune cells into a patient to eliminate cancer cells. However, these treatments are currently ineffective in BC and costly.
END-BC will complement research into B cells to produce an ACT that improves treatment efficacy against breast cancer while reducing side effects and costs from effective therapy. Our research developed novel biomaterial to overcome significant obstacles to successfully enhance B cell functions against cancer using a low-cost method. In END-BC, we will research the commercial and technical feasibility of tailoring the B cell ACT with biomaterials to determine its potential to treat BC.
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 surgery
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology immunotherapy
- engineering and technology industrial biotechnology biomaterials
You need to log in or register to use this function
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.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
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-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
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) ERC-2023-POC
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
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.
52074 Aachen
Germany
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.