Objective
Drug attrition due to insufficient efficacy or safety remains a major driver of drug development costs, addressable through improved understanding of disease at the genetic and cell type level. Large-scale genetic and single-cell studies provide correlative associations between genetic variants and disease phenotypes but lack mechanistic insight into disease-causal effects. While AI-based foundation models have advanced towards this goal, they are trained on heterogeneous, non-disease-specific data, lacking the resolution to link genomic sequence to function in a cell type- and disease-state-specific manner. Here we introduce CellTuned, a unified sequence-to-function AI platform designed to enable mechanistically interpretable identification of disease-relevant cell states and therapeutic targets. CellTuned uniquely integrates modelling of cis-regulatory elements with single-cell–resolution gene regulatory network inference, allowing causal links to be established between genomic sequence, regulatory programs, and pathological cell states. Beyond target discovery, CellTuned enables the rational design of compact, cell type-specific synthetic enhancers, addressing a parallel challenge in gene therapy where empirically selected promoters result in off-target activity, suboptimal expression, and viral packaging constraints. CellTuned will be applied across a portfolio of disease indications to generate disease-relevant models, identify disease-driving cell states, and prioritise therapeutic targets. For gene therapy-relevant indications, cell type-specific synthetic enhancers will be designed. Beyond delivering a broad computational portfolio, small-scale experimental validation will be performed for one selected disease indication. Together, these outputs will constitute an investor-ready translational portfolio, forming the basis for industry partnerships and spin-off creation.
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 basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy drug discovery
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology genetic engineering gene therapy
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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)
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-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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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) ERC-2026-POC
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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.
9052 ZWIJNAARDE - GENT
Belgium
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.