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From n=1 to many: Scaling-up gene editing for future heart therapies

Objective

Background: Genetic cardiomyopathies affect about 18 million patients worldwide and are a major cause of heart failure. LMNA mutations cause specifically severe forms of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). However, curative options remain extremely limited. Despite rapid advances in CRISPR-based technologies, there is no trial or approved therapy that corrects pathogenic variants directly in the human heart. Key barriers are the lack of heart-specific editors, challenging delivery to the myocardium, and mutation heterogeneity across affected genes, such as LMNA.

Aim: Therefore, I aim to establish a scalable, safe, and efficient gene editing strategy for the myocardium that integrates AI-guided editor engineering, editing strategies, and programmable LNP delivery with human tissue readouts and in vivo testing.

Methods: (1) Engineer and benchmark a cardiomyocyte-optimized recombinase that requires less dsDNA donor by design. Further reduce donor toxicity by modulating innate immunity and developing a paradigm-changing new DNA donor architecture for recombinases. Define post-translational modifications and use them to engineer editors with higher efficiency in adult cardiomyocytes. (2) Build a modular editing portfolio around the “benchmark mutation” LMNA-R190W that includes exon rewriting and site-specific gene integration, with the goal to cover multiple known mutations at once. (3) Develop nonviral delivery with cardiomyocyte preference using lipid nanoparticles equipped with de novo binders and compare to AAV9 as an efficacy and safety benchmark. (4) Test these approaches in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, in 3D heart tissue, and in small-animal models of LMNA-R190W.

Opportunities: ONE2MANY will generate a scalable editing and delivery framework that generalizes across cardiomyopathies. It provides a new, integrated approach to think all separate components of gene editing together – editors, editing, and delivery – to finally unlock first-in-human cardiac editing,

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2026-STG

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Host institution

KLINIKUM DER TECHNISCHEN UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN (TUM KLINIKUM)
Net EU contribution

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.

€ 1 499 468,00
Address
ISMANINGER STRASSE 22
81675 Muenchen
Germany

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Region
Bayern Oberbayern München, Kreisfreie Stadt
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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.

€ 1 499 468,00

Beneficiaries (1)