Objective
Dirofilariasis is a parasitic zoonosis caused by Dorofilaria immitis, a nematode belonging to the family Onchocercidae. This parasitosis affects dogs and cats which act as reservoirs, and occasionally humans in whom it could originate benign pulmonary nodules that can be mistaken for pulmonary carcinoma. Dirofilariasis is a public health problem and its control requires diagnostic and protective measures. Because products of this nature do not exist in the market, the constitution of a European industrial/university team for their production would constitute a great opportunity for pre-empting the American industry in this field. The objectives of the proposal are: Identification of antigens of diagnostic/protective interest. 2. Cloning genes related to these antigens. 3. To probe the diagnostic/protective capacity of the recombinant antigens. This research has a pre-competitive character and its objectives are in accordance with those of the BIOMED Programme. An important technical advantage can be achieved if these products are manufactured, because: they will occupy an unexploited space in the market , the improvement of the current methods could be achieved and they will contribute to the improvement and reduction in costs of the health services. The selected tasks for the exploratory phase are related to the development of the proposal (the search for new partners; verification of the originality of the research and the evaluation of the economic impact), and to the study of the viability of the proposal (identification of polypeptides of interest and genes related to them in a cDNA expression library of D. immitis).
Fields of science
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
EAW - Exploratory awardsCoordinator
20143 Milano
Italy