Project description
How cancer drugs affect vaccine protection
While infectious diseases claimed millions of lives in 2019, the burden is not shared equally. Cancer patients, in particular, remain dangerously exposed. Many cancer therapies do their job well, but they often leave behind a compromised immune landscape where vaccines struggle to take hold. This creates a dangerous gap in protection for the people who need it most. The EU-funded OrAIOn project aims to map the hidden intersections between cancer therapy and vaccine failure. Using human tonsil organoids and computational drug profiling, it will assess how hundreds of cancer drugs impact vaccination outcomes. The findings promise tailored vaccines and improved protection for cancer patients worldwide.
Objective
Infectious diseases caused >2 million deaths in 2019 (pre-COVID-19). Cancer patients die more often from infections than healthy individuals and are less effectively protected by vaccines. Several studies link oncology drugs to altered vaccine responses. While designed to inhibit tumor progression, these drugs also affect immune functions and thus may interfere with vaccine responses – for better or worse. A systematic analysis of this problem has so far been hampered by a lack of suitable models and the low throughput of clinical trials. Currently, it is unknown how most oncology drugs, routinely administered to patients, affect vaccine responses. In OrAIOn, I will fill this knowledge gap and systematically survey how a wide range of oncology drugs impact vaccination outcomes. To this end, I will use two high-throughput (HT) approaches: 1) a human tonsil lymphoid organoid-based screen with a custom library of >400 oncology drugs; 2) a computational screen with >20,000 publicly available drug profiles. To predict the impact of multiple drug combinations on vaccination, I will exploit a recent AI model. Finally, I will use in vitro and in vivo models, patient records, and public human datasets to determine and validate the underlying mechanisms. OrAIOn’s groundbreaking outcome will be the first comprehensive database of validated drug-vaccine interactions with detailed mechanistic insights. I will go beyond the state of the art by pioneering tonsil-based HT screens and yielding >3000 single-cell RNA-seq profiles from perturbed lymphoid tissue cells. My insights will inform follow-up clinical trials, leading to better vaccine recommendations and tailored vaccines. They will also improve anti-cancer vaccine strategies. In the long term, OrAIOn will enable me to realize my vision to provide personalized vaccination strategies to all cancer patients.
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.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences databases
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs vaccines
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
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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.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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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.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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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) ERC-2024-STG
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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.
72074 Tuebingen
Germany
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