Project description
A closer look at therapeutic functions of peroxisomes
Peroxisomes are tiny, membrane-enclosed organelles. They contain enzymes active in a broad range of metabolic reactions, including several aspects of energy metabolism. Emergent studies have discovered that the peroxisome can also function as an intracellular signalling compartment and as an organising platform that makes crucial developmental decisions from inside the cell. The EU funded PERICO project will carry out groundbreaking multidisciplinary research focusing on peroxisome interactions and communication. As such, 15 early-stage researchers will receive training in excellent, transferable skills that will enable them to advance new therapies and drugs targeting the increased diseases implicated by peroxisome.
Objective
PERICO fosters education of ESRs in a project to uncover how a central metabolic organelle, the peroxisome, participates in controlling cellular metabolism. It trains 15 ESRs at world-leading academic institutions, including university hospitals, and companies, thus forming strong interdisciplinary links between industry, life and medical sciences, and end-users.
PERICO aims to train a new generation of highly qualified ESRs with entrepreneurial competencies in modern Life Sciences through state-of-the-art research projects focusing on the communication between peroxisomes and the rest of the cell – required to enable optimal metabolic decisions - and to use this knowledge to develop novel leads for drug discovery and therapies for a growing list of serious human diseases in which peroxisomes have been implicated.
The new field on organelle communication requires highly skilled scientists who have expert knowledge on more than one discipline (e.g. cell biology, biochemistry, systems biology and medical sciences), more than one type of cell organelle or more than one model organism to optimally translate their research data to other disciplines and sectors, including medicine.
PERICO overcomes current barriers by establishing a strong, multidisciplinary and inter-sectoral training network, developing technologies tailored to solve key questions in organelle biology. The PERICO programme will exploit recent developments in high throughput and genome wide screening technologies, combine these with modern molecular cell biology and systems biology and ultimately translate the data into new leads for drug discovery and therapy. This specific cross-disciplinary training program will educate young scientists to a next level, which is needed to advance this research field for the upcoming decennium and to efficiently translate findings into applications. The training programme will be complemented with a complete set of transferable skills.
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Coordinator
9712CP Groningen
Netherlands