Objective
The project will focus on four distinct human cytomegalvirus(HCMV)-related research areas:
- the molecular biology of gene transcription
- the pathogenesis of HCMV infection and diseases
- the improvement and standardisation of diagnostic methods
- the improvement of antiviral therapy and the investigation of mechanisms of resistance
To study the function and mechanism of action of HCMV gene products antisense RNA expression vectors specific for the immediate early genes 1 and 2, the major early beta2.7kb transcript as well as the pp65 tegument protein will be used. The highly complex problem of pathogenesis of HCMV infection and disease will be tackled experimentally with three major questions: 1) How does HCMV infection influence host cell functions? 2) Is the genetic diversity between different virus isolates sufficient to allow evasion of an effective immune response? 3) Is viral load in the infected host related to tissue tropism and HCMV disease? The cruicial point concerning diagnosis in the clinical setting is the differentiation of active HCMV infection and HCMV disease as well as indication for antiviral therapy. The two sensitive methods developed in recent years (PCR and antigenemia assay) suffer from lack of standardisation, which is essential. Internal and external quality control will be developed and implemented in the clinics, which will allow comparison of data between different centres in Europe. The diagnostic data will be related to severity of HCMV disease and will be used to evaluate early antiviral treatment and to monitor therapeutic response. Currently two drugs, ganciclovir and forscarnet, are licensed for treatment of HCMV disease. Life-long treatment, as is required in AIDS-patients with HCMV infections, results in the emergence of resistant viruses. The project focuses on the development of new antiviral strategies for treatment and mechanisms of resistance. A large number of new compounds will be screened for antiviral activity and the mode of action of these and already existing drugs will be elucidated.
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.
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology virology
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics RNA
- natural sciences biological sciences molecular biology
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
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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.
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Funding Scheme
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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.
Coordinator
91054 ERLANQEN
Germany
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.