Project description
Engineering the immune system to fight cancer
Despite its initial promise, immunotherapy against cancer has exhibited limited success in the clinic. This indicates the need for synergistic and safer therapies causing fewer immune-related toxicities. The EU-funded ImmunoBioSynth project proposes to design synthetic biomaterials for instructing the immune system to fight cancer. These innovative biomaterials will replace biological drugs and contribute to the remodelling of the tumour microenvironment from a suppressive into a susceptible state. Ultimately, this will lead to more specific treatments that alone or in combination with other regimens can improve the outcome of cancer patients.
Objective
Immunotherapy holds the potential to dramatically improve the curative prognosis of cancer patients. However, despite significant progress, a huge gap remains to be bridged to gain board success in the clinic. A first limiting factor in cancer immunotherapy is the low response rate in large fraction of the patients and an unmet need exists for more efficient - potentially synergistic - immunotherapies that improve upon or complement existing strategies. The second limiting factor is immune-related toxicity that can cause live-threatening situations as well as seriously impair the quality of life of patients. Therefore, there is an urgent need for safer immunotherapies that allow for a more target-specific engineering of the immune system. Strategies to engineer the immune system via a materials chemistry approach, i.e. immuno-engineering, have gathered major attention over the past decade and could complement or replace biologicals, and holds promise to contribute to resolving the current issues faced by the immunotherapy field. I hypothesize that synthetic biomaterials can play an important role in anti-cancer immunotherapy with regard to synergistic, safe, but potent, instruction of innate and adaptive anti-cancer immunity and to revert the tumor microenvironment from an immune-suppressive into an immune-susceptible state. Hereto, the overall scientific objective of this proposal is to fully embrace the potential of immuno-engineering and develop several highly synergistic biomaterials strategies to engineer the immune system to fight cancer. I will develop a series of biomaterials and address a number of fundamental questions with regard to optimal biomaterial design for immuno-engineering. Based on these findings, I will elucidate those therapeutic strategies that lead to synergistic engineering of innate and adaptive immunity in combination with remodeling the tumor microenvironment from an immune-suppressive into an immune-susceptible state.
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.
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.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology immunotherapy
- engineering and technology industrial biotechnology biomaterials
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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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.
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.
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.
ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2018-COG
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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.
9000 GENT
Belgium
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.