The overall impact of this project is to timely boost the cell migration research field, including both basic biomedical research as well as clinical research, and to pave the way toward similar efforts in other fields that will benefit from standardizing the recording, quantification and data sharing of dynamic biological processes. We will enable the data acquired during high-content, high-throughput cell migration experiments to reach their full clinical potential, by providing the necessary infrastructure for comprehensive, multiscale analyses. This will be demonstrated by two proof-of-concept studies: guiding personalized cancer treatment through organoid studies, and performing patient diagnosis based on peripheral blood leukocyte motility. Moreover, we will disseminate the bioinformatics outcomes of the project through the creation of an open data exchange ecosystem, consisting of community standards, open software tools and a public data repository, thus maximizing accessibility for the high-content, biologically and medically relevant data obtained in cell migration experiments. Notably, this can also lead to increased commercial products in bioinformatics. This is one of the reasons why our project specifically includes SMEs in the field, as this ensures active participation from the commercial sector in the data exchange ecosystem. The provision of permissively licensed open source software to interact with this ecosystem will also benefit commercial developers, greatly facilitating the development of new types of commercial software services that are aimed at leveraging private experimental results in the context of public data, to answer biological or medical questions for clients. It should also be noted that the data exchange ecosystem we create in this project, together with our innovative applications in personalized health, will provide a new platform for research and innovation in this field. European SMEs will be ideally placed to quickly adopt and adapt these novel approaches into new translational commercial services. Overall, the MULTIMOT project will build on European excellence to further strengthen the EU as the prime location for advanced bioinformatics research in this field. Indeed, the recent transfer of the Cell Migration Gateway from the US to the Geiger lab, combined with the existing leadership in life sciences standards development in Europe, coalesces in a timely fashion with this project proposal, providing a unique opportunity for Europe to take the global lead on cell migration data standardization, dissemination and meta-analysis. This leadership will provide a key incentive for bioinformaticians to come to Europe to work in this promising field. Importantly, this project will have a similar attractive effect on cell biology researchers, who will drive the further adoption of these approaches in clinical settings.
