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Simulating the dynamics of viral evolution: A computer-aided study toward engineering effective vaccines

Objective

The adaptive immune system mounts pathogen-specific responses against diverse microbes and establishes memory of past infections thus constituting the basis of vaccination. Although major advances have been made in understanding pertinent molecular and cellular phenomena, an understanding of the mechanistic principles that govern the emergence of an immune response has proven so far to be elusive. An example of a consequence of this missing knowledge is the inability to design a vaccine against HIV. The difficulty in elucidating the mechanistic principles underlying adaptive immune responses are due to the fact that the pertinent processes involve cooperative dynamic events with many participating components that must act collectively for a given phenomenon to emerge. Many groups around the world work on designing vaccines by trying to stimulate good antibodies that will neutralize the virus. In this project we propose an alternative strategy: by means of harnessing the cellular immune response, or the T cell immune response, which controls virus infected cells and controls infections in the body; this strategy might not prevent infection but it can certainly prevent disease. For this, computer-aided approaches will offer the possibility of defining fitness of highly mutable pathogens (and cancers) so that to facilitate rational design of vaccines and therapies. The proposed computer modeling of viral dynamics, can offer an unprecedented means to identify vulnerable regions of the virus through the application of statistical mechanics-based computer simulation of the evolution dynamics of escape mutants in HIV, guiding this way the engineering of efficacious vaccine immunogens for diverse viruses.

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.

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Programme(s)

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.

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.

MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2017

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Coordinator

ETHNICON METSOVION POLYTECHNION
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.

€ 236 457,00
Address
HEROON POLYTECHNIOU 9 ZOGRAPHOU CAMPUS
157 72 ATHINA
Greece

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Region
Αττική Aττική Κεντρικός Τομέας Αθηνών
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
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.

€ 236 457,00

Partners (1)

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