Project description
Innovative imaging platform for cancer diagnosis and evaluation of treatment efficacy
Spanish company FASTBASE Solutions has developed an imaging system based on a proprietary time-resolved amplified Förster resonance energy transfer technique. The system determines both molecular and cell–cell interactions and is capable of improving the evaluation of the clinical efficacy of cancer treatments. Moreover, it examines how cancer cells communicate and engage with one another, allowing staging and grading of cancer as well as analysis of whether the cancer cells respond to drugs and determination of the proportion of resistant cells. The EU-funded iaFRET project aims to validate the business model through internal research and outreach to major stakeholders, including clinical research organisations, certification and regulation experts, and cancer research and treatment centres.
Objective
Chemotherapy remains the main treatment in locally advanced or metastatic lung cancer. The wide use of chemotherapies
is often lengthy (4 months) and is not supported by any patient stratification tools, leading to life-threatening risk. current
techniques used to identify biomarkers for target or immunotherapy (i.e. Immunohistochemistry and Protein Ligase Assays)
lack of sensitivity (up to 30% of false negatives) resulting in qualitative, subjective measurements with poor prognostic value.
iaFRET is an imaging system based on a proprietary time resolved Amplified Forester Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET)
technique. It determines both molecular and cell-cell interactions, enabling the evaluation of clinical efficiency of
personalised cancer treatments. iaFRET enables oncologists to define the most effective treatment for cancer case and
verify its efficacy anytime during the therapy. FASTBASE will need to finalise the engineering of the machine, optimize the
image analysis algorithms and user interface, conduct a clinical trial to demonstrate and validate the safety, efficacy and cost
savings of technology. Globally there are almost 300 research institutes and hospitals currently working on cancer research
worldwide, 147 in EU. Emerging frontiers like immunotherapy highly require technology like iaFRET. iaFRET can contribute
to European health system by improving the prognosis and treatment selection for cancer patients, hence increasing the life
expectancy of patients affected by this pathology.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologydementiaalzheimer
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologylung cancer
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineendocrinologydiabetes
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunologyimmunotherapy
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologycells technologies
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
48160 DERIO BIZKAIA
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.