Objective
Pancreatic cancer is diagnosed 60,000 times in the USA and the EU each year; the same number of people die of this disease each year. This illustrates that existing therapies have little effect once the disease is diagnosed; survival time is 80 to 160 days. Gastrin drives the tumor growth. Recently, an anti-gastrin vaccine was developed able to double the survival time and to improve the quality of life of pacreatic cancer patients. Unfortunately, only a limited number of individuals respond to the vaccine and produce antibodies; even then development of antibodies is slow. We propose an alternative which will take effect immediately in all individuals treated. To this end, we propose to develop high affinity and low cost synthetic antibodies -'binding bodies'- against gastrin. Binding bodies are two or more CDR-based peptides (CDR's are the hypervariable regions of the antigen-interaction site of an antibody) coupled covalently to a small synthetic scaffold. The concept works: ample evidence shows that CDR-based peptides can bind antigen. Recent data (PS,1) show that combinations of 2 CDR-based peptides give much higher binding and much more specificity. We speculate that further optimisation yield low cost synthetic antibodies -binding bodies- with activities similar to natural antibodies.To sort this out the integration of six different technologies is required: 1.recombinant antibody libraries to define CDR-based peptides binding gastrin (CNIO,2), 2.bio-informatic approach to the prediction of optimized set of binding bodies (AN,4), 3.peptide synthesis and supramolecular design of optimized binding body libraries (PS,1), 4. affinity measurements to validate antibody and binding bodies (ULP,3), 5. animal models to validate therapeutic potential of anti-gastrin binding bodies (UMCU,6), 6. binding body arrays for clinical applications (proteom,5). It goes without saying that success of this project can only be obtained by this multi-disciplinary approach.
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 biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs vaccines
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology pancreatic cancer
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
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.
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.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Data not available
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
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.
Coordinator
LELYSTAD
Netherlands
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.