Project description
Boosting cancer immunotherapy with theranostic nanoparticles
The tumour microenvironment dynamically interacts with cancer cells, supporting their survival, local invasion and metastatic dissemination. It also helps cancer cells evade the immune system and resist therapy. Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the MultiTheranostic project aims to address the negative impact of the tumour microenvironment on immunotherapy through theranostic nanoparticles. The latter provide the opportunity to combine gene therapy, chemotherapy, and magnetic hyperthermia to enhance tumour targeting and treatment. Researchers will test biocompatible nanoparticles in a tissue-engineered model, paving the way for advanced nanomedicine solutions against melanoma.
Objective
Cancer is a leading cause of death and a major impediment to increasing life expectancy around the globe. Amongst all skin cancers, melanoma is a hard-to-treat disease, owing to its high potential for metastasis, and it remains as one of the most aggressive cancers. Single therapy is not efficient to tackle metastatic melanoma and a combination of therapies is thus emerging as a necessity to efficiently eradicate all cancer cells. Recently, immunotherapy, in particular immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), has become a powerful treatment strategy for cancer. Nevertheless, the physical barriers represented by cellular and non-cellular components of the tumour microenvironment combined with immune escape mechanisms of cancer, hamper an efficient tumour infiltration and patients responsiveness to ICI therapy. In this context, MultiTheranostic aims to develop theranostic nanoparticles for gene therapy-mediated immune checkpoint silencing and chemotherapy, exploiting the properties of magnetic nanoparticles to induce damage locally on the tumour microenvironment by magnetic hyperthermia (MH). This multimodal theranostic approach, incorporating MRI tracking, is versatile, as it could be also applied to other types of solid tumours. MultiTheranostic objectives are (i) to synthetize and validate a biocompatible magnetic lipid nanoparticle (NPs) incorporating silencing RNA against ICI targets, and chemotherapy (WP1, WP2), (ii) to develop a tissue-engineered (TE) model for screening and monitoring the efficacy of the NPs (WP3), and (ii) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the final drug delivery system as a multimodal theranostic approach for metastatic melanoma (WP4). With MultiTheranostic the researcher will greatly expand her scientific expertise in the fields of nanotechnology and bioengineering, positioning her as a leading independent researcher, contributing to the advancement of nanomedicine in Europe and beyond.
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
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules lipids
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology nanomedicine
- engineering and technology nanotechnology nano-materials
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology immunotherapy
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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.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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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-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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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-MSCA-2023-PF-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.
4715-330 Braga
Portugal
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.