Project description
Real-time immune cell imaging in cancer patients
Personalising cancer treatment is vital but difficult due to patient variability and the complexity of combination therapies. A major step forward would be the ability to non-invasively track immune cell dynamics inside the body to evaluate treatment effectiveness. To meet this need, the EIC-funded VIVID project proposes to develop multimodal imaging agents called BEACONs that allow quantitative tracking of immune cells by MRI and fluorescence imaging. The project will conduct a clinical trial to validate these agents and establish a spin-off company for commercial release. This innovation has the potential to assist cancer therapy and reduce side effects by real-time monitoring of immune responses.
Objective
VIVID is a project on the Clinical Validation of In Vivo Imaging for Detecting Immune Dynamics.
Optimising cancer treatment is a challenge, especially with combination therapies and patient variability. The ability to study cell migration in a quantitative and non-invasive manner in vivo, of endogenous cancer-fighting immune cells and administered therapeutic cells is essential for biomarker-driven and personalised clinical trials. Our imaging agent, BEACONs, allow for multimodal, quantitative imaging of cell populations; here with quantitative 19F MRI and fluorescence.
This project will demonstrate and validate the feasibility of cell tracking using multimodal imaging and increase the maturity of BEACONs (to TRL 5-6) through a first-in-man clinical trial in current cancer standard of care.
Our specific objectives are to 1) Set up a clinical trial of interest to large pharma, here the imaging of labelled immune cells in a neoadjuvant setting; 2) Build a business plan and create a spin-off; 3) Ensure that any new IP is protected; 4) Perform outreach towards patients and end-users.
The potential societal impact of using BEACONs includes being able to assess and adapt complex therapies in major diseases such as cancer organ transplants, allowing a more targeted treatment and reducing patient burden such as negative side effects of ineffective treatment. The economic benefit of using BEACONs is large, while also reducing animal use, and enabling early assessment of cell therapies and cancer therapies.
VIVID allows the application of our technology in a new field -that of personalisation of cancer therapy- aside from cell therapies, increasing our potential customer base (oncology drug market expected $285B in 2023).
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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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.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
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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.
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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) HORIZON-EIC-2024-TRANSITION-01
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6708 PB Wageningen
Netherlands
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