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Oligonucleotides for Medical Applications

Project description

Innovative oligonucleotide technologies to treat disease

Synthetic oligonucleotides (ONs) are emerging as promising therapeutic molecules for the treatment of genetic diseases. Pharmaceutical companies tend to license the production of ONs, underscoring a need for industry and academia cooperation in the development of ON technology. To address this limitation, the EU-funded OLIGOMED project will unite experts from the two sectors and establish a training programme for the next generation of researchers in the field. Moreover, the project will develop innovative ON technologies and optimise them for the treatment of various diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

Objective

The use of synthetic oligonucleotides (ONs, short DNA or RNA strands) in the treatment of genetic diseases is a rapidly growing field, and the most promising alternative to gene therapy or small molecules. Most pharmaceutical companies shift from in-house platform development to product-specific licensing and co-development to get ON based therapies past clinical trials. Therefore there is a growing and currently unmet need for a combined academic and industry-based multidisciplinary research to further advance the field by bringing together the separated and fragmented R&D efforts of diverse ON technologies.

OLIGOMED will address these needs by:
- uniting world-class academic and private sector expertise in ON chemistry, bio-analysis and medical applications
- developing a next generation ON platform technology based on combining tailored synthetic ONs with smart delivery
- optimising ON therapies through testing in medicinal environments

We will use these novel ON technologies to develop innovative treatment options for high-impact genetic diseases, i.e. Huntington’s disease, cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

Our European intersectoral and multidisciplinary research and training network for 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) will deliver:
-highly skilled scientific staff required to fully exploit ON therapeutics for personalised medicine
-top-class training in organic and chemoenzymatic synthesis, ON analysis, and biomedical/medicinal testing
-transferable skills courses, specific industry relevant workshops and public engagement activities

This combination makes OLIGOMED a truly exciting programme for ESRs. The platform will immediately benefit to both European citizens and commercial partners. In the long term, OLIGOMED`s flexible platform technology will be taken forward by our private sector and research institutions for exploitation and will thus strengthen the European innovation capacity in the field of ON therapies.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

MSCA-ITN - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN)

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-ITN-2020

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
Net EU contribution
€ 606 345,12
Address
Highfield
SO17 1BJ SOUTHAMPTON
United Kingdom
Region
South East (England) Hampshire and Isle of Wight Southampton
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 606 345,12

Participants (14)