Project description
Multidisciplinary research in vascular diseases
Vascular anomalies (VAs) are rare diseases causing chronic pain, disabilities, and even sudden death, lacking effective treatments. The EU-funded V.A. Cure project intends to uncover the mechanisms of disease initiation and maintenance and use this information to establish new therapeutic strategies. The consortium consists of seven world-leading academic laboratories and five companies. The project will identify novel genes involved in VAs in patients, anatomise molecular mechanisms behind the diseases by in vitro modelling, perform an in-depth analysis of tissular mechanisms in pathophysiological conditions through in vivo models, and preclinical testing of identified treatment strategies. V.A. Cure will train 14 early-stage researchers in several advanced technologies, making them future leaders in vascular research.
Objective
Vascular anomalies (VAs) is a group of rare diseases defined by blood- or lymph vessel dysfunction causing chronic pain, disabilities, and even sudden death, and for which effective treatments are lacking. The European V.A. Cure network aims to address this unmet medical need by uncovering core mechanisms of disease initiation and maintenance and by leveraging this information for establishing novel therapeutic strategies for VAs.
V.A. Cure has assembled 7 world-leading academic laboratories and 5 companies, which will apply an intersectoral four-step approach: (1) identification of novel genes involved in VAs in patients, (2) dissection of molecular mechanisms behind the diseases by in vitro modelling, (3) in-depth analysis of tissular mechanisms in pathophysiological conditions through in vivo models, and (4) pre-clinical testing of identified treatment strategies. The knowledge gained will not only be relevant for VAs but also for understanding aberrant vascular function in other vascular-related diseases.
The composition of V.A. Cure and close interaction between the 14 ESRs, through secondments in academia and industry, guarantee a unique intersectoral training program at the highest level, ensuring a comprehensive perception of research and drug/technology development in pharma industry/biotech and academia. ESRs will be trained in a plethora of cutting-edge technologies including next-generation sequencing (up to single-cell RNA-Seq), CRISPR-Cas genome editing, generation of animal models with inducible deletion and mosaic analyses, generation of iPSCs, microfluidics, in vivo phage display to identify endothelial targets, and light sheet-, confocal-, and multiphoton live-imaging. In combination with advanced training in management and communication including writing, presentation, e-media and outreach, the graduates of the V.A. Cure network will be future leaders in vascular research, and also highly competitive candidates for positions outside academia.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
Keywords
Programme(s)
Coordinator
1200 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium