Project description
New software to design patient-specific cancer vaccines
Scientists expect personalised immunotherapy could cure cancer but this involves personalised vaccination – a complicated, time-consuming, costly laboratory process to target a specific case of mutation. For this reason, researchers are developing algorithms to identify immunogenic neoantigens via next generation sequencing (NGS) data from tumour samples. The EU-funded MEDIVAC project aims to support this process by applying the machine learning framework from Oncolmmunity (OI). It provides an opportunity to use several public and other databases to significantly increase the performance of the identification process for relevant neoantigens. This will bring medical science much closer to introducing a promising personalised vaccination for cancer therapy.
Objective
Cancer is arguably the most feared of all diseases, destroying lives regardless of the age of its victims. Immunotherapies are currently regarded as the most promising avenue to delivering the holy grail of medicine i.e. providing a cure for cancer. Despite their Nobel-winning status, personalisation of immunotherapies remains akey challenge to which no cost-effective solution currently exists. Current methods for identifying the immunogenic neoantigens required to design patient-specific cancer vaccines typically utilize next generation sequencing (NGS) analysis of DNA and RNA coupled with wet lab methods (e.g. spectroscopy). However, these approaches are time consuming to perform, expensive and not readily scalable–which currently prohibits the mass roll-out of personalised cancer vaccines.
Despite the fact that intensive research has been dedicated to developing prediction algorithms which can identify immunogenic neoantigens from NGS data from tumor samples, their accuracy has not yet reached a competitive performance compared to wet lab methods. To bridge this gap, OncoImmunity (OI) has developed a comprehensive machine learning framework, trained using public and proprietary datasets to optimise performance. Once fed with patient NGS data from healthy and tumor tissue, OI’s algorithms identifies the most clinically relevant neoantigen candidates, with an unmatched accuracy (4-fold increase of prediction accuracy), which can be subsequently engineering into personalised vaccine cancer constructs.
Considering the potential of personalised therapy within cancer immunotherapy, OI’s core technology meets all the requirements to become a key enabling technology, providing cost-effective, scalable and sensitive identification of clinically relevant targets for vaccine development. Thus, it has the potential to serve as a cornerstone to revolutionize the fight against cancer – while untapping an immense business opportunity to fuel our company’s growth.
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 basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs vaccines
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics RNA
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology immunotherapy
- natural sciences computer and information sciences artificial intelligence machine learning
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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.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
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H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies
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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.
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2
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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) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
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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.
0379 OSLO
Norway
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
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.