Objective
The aim of the project is to favour the development of new techniques of genome modification to generate animal models of acquired human pathological disorders. These animal models will be generated with precise and predicted genetic characteristics designed to provide knowledge of high quality and specificity in relationship to a number of human diseases.
In this project novel transgenic technologies will be developed and employed in order to study mechanisms of genetic control which are relevant in-vivo. To approach this issue, the partners will develop to perfection methods which allow cell-type-specific gene inactivation or activation in-vivo, in an inducible, reversible or irreversible manner.
These methods will be used for the generation of transgenic mouse models in which a variety of autoimmune processes and other acquired diseases, such as non-inherited forms of cancer, can be studied. The feasibility of the proposed research comes from recent demonstrations that transgenic technologies can in principle be used successfully to achieve inducible control of gene activity in-vivo, either through "conditional" gene targeting (developed in one of the partner laboratories) using the bacteriophage-derived Cre/loxP recombination system, or reversible induction of gene expression using transgenic regulatory systems derived from bacteria. The project brings together several leading groups in the field and also includes promising laboratories from less-favoured regions. This should allow for the maintenance of the leading position of Europe in the important branch of medical research and the spread of the corresponding new technologies throughout Europe. The participation of one industrial group in this proposal who intend to exploit the relevant results and its deliverables, will assure industrial development of the products with potential use. Genetically engineered mouse models of disease are likely to become one of the prime future tools in both industrial (pharmaceutical) and academic medical research and the availability of such new mouse models may be relevant for the competitiveness of the European pharmaceutical enterprises. Animal models of acquired human pathological disorders will be very good targets for the evaluation of drug specificity for human therapy and should prove useful in the development of new strategies for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune or viral diseases.
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.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsgenomes
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
20129 MILANO
Italy