CARES Human ECM-based platform for anti-cancer drug testing - CARES (CAncer dRug tESting)

Summary

With 2 million cancer-related deaths and an annual cost of €100 billion, cancer constitutes a major European challenge. Cancer
treatments have considerably improved over the last decades, however, the success rate of new anti-cancer drugs in clinical trials
remains frustratingly low, limiting the opportunities for fast and accurate development of innovative targeted cancer therapies. Our
vision is to provide a bold and innovative technology that recapitulates the active part played by the human tumour
microenvironment, which has crucial roles in regulating tumour initiation, propagation, and progression, through the dynamic
crosstalk between the tumour cells and the extracellular matrix. CARES combines leading academic and non-academic experts in the
fields of matrix biology, biomaterials, microfluidics and cancer research to establish an accurate tool to assess cancer cell responses to
a variety of anti-cancer drugs. As a proof-of-concept, we will use breast cancer cells as a model system, with the perspective of
extending the system to other cancers. Our final goal is to deliver a novel and user-friendly platform that, by resembling the human
tumour microenvironment in early and advanced cancer stages, can predict, with unprecedented accuracy, the response of tumour
cells to anti-cancer therapies in vivo. This will facilitate development and testing of new drugs and narrow the gap between
translational cancer research and targeted cancer treatment, with a significant impact on society and the economy. The ambitious
scientific goal will provide the background for intense trans-sectoral and interdisciplinary training of young scientists, who will be
provided with an excellent translational research portfolio, allowing them to succeed both in academia and industry.

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