4D-therapy | Multimodal “4D”-therapy of pediatric high grade glioma

Summary
Paediatric high grade glioma (pHGG) is the most common malignant childhood brain tumour with standard-of-care inevitably resulting in therapy-resistant relapse or disease progression. The need for new combinatorial treatments is universally acknowledged; however, modern combination therapies are sparse, include at most two modalities and have so far not been able to significantly improve the dismal prognosis of the disease.
In this proposal, I conceptualize a highly targeted multimodal treatment strategy for pHGG (4D-therapy) based on complementary precision medicine approaches. The system leverages multiple inter-modal synergies, overcomes resistance to individual therapies and disperses off-targeting to different cell populations, thereby creating a large therapeutic window.
Initially, we will conduct a comprehensive screen to evaluate a novel regimen of combined upfront targeted drug- and radiotherapy (RT), followed by functional validation in vitro and in vivo. In-depth molecular profiling will allow us to unravel mechanisms of radiosensitization.
Further, we aim to establish an innovative gene therapy approach with unprecedented, highly specific tropism for tumour cells by combining elaborately selected adeno-associated viruses and nanocapsules with newly identified Cas-nucleases.
Ultimately, we will systematically combine drug-RTs, gene therapies and existing tumour-specific CAR-T cells within a rationally designed, multimodal treatment regimen and evaluate its efficacy in a series of preclinical studies. A broad representation of patient-derived xenografts, complemented by immunocompetent allograft models will provide leading-edge predictive power and a unique dataset to investigate multimodal interactions.
I expect this project to provide pioneering insights into inter-modal treatment synergies, to produce stratified treatment protocols for pHGG, directly informing clinical trials and to become a pathbreaking feasibility study for multimodal cancer therapy.
Unfold all
/
Fold all
More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101117088
Start date: 01-01-2024
End date: 31-12-2028
Total budget - Public funding: 1 493 711,00 Euro - 1 493 711,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Paediatric high grade glioma (pHGG) is the most common malignant childhood brain tumour with standard-of-care inevitably resulting in therapy-resistant relapse or disease progression. The need for new combinatorial treatments is universally acknowledged; however, modern combination therapies are sparse, include at most two modalities and have so far not been able to significantly improve the dismal prognosis of the disease.
In this proposal, I conceptualize a highly targeted multimodal treatment strategy for pHGG (4D-therapy) based on complementary precision medicine approaches. The system leverages multiple inter-modal synergies, overcomes resistance to individual therapies and disperses off-targeting to different cell populations, thereby creating a large therapeutic window.
Initially, we will conduct a comprehensive screen to evaluate a novel regimen of combined upfront targeted drug- and radiotherapy (RT), followed by functional validation in vitro and in vivo. In-depth molecular profiling will allow us to unravel mechanisms of radiosensitization.
Further, we aim to establish an innovative gene therapy approach with unprecedented, highly specific tropism for tumour cells by combining elaborately selected adeno-associated viruses and nanocapsules with newly identified Cas-nucleases.
Ultimately, we will systematically combine drug-RTs, gene therapies and existing tumour-specific CAR-T cells within a rationally designed, multimodal treatment regimen and evaluate its efficacy in a series of preclinical studies. A broad representation of patient-derived xenografts, complemented by immunocompetent allograft models will provide leading-edge predictive power and a unique dataset to investigate multimodal interactions.
I expect this project to provide pioneering insights into inter-modal treatment synergies, to produce stratified treatment protocols for pHGG, directly informing clinical trials and to become a pathbreaking feasibility study for multimodal cancer therapy.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

ERC-2023-STG

Update Date

12-03-2024
Images
No images available.
Geographical location(s)
Structured mapping
Unfold all
/
Fold all
Horizon Europe
HORIZON.1 Excellent Science
HORIZON.1.1 European Research Council (ERC)
HORIZON.1.1.0 Cross-cutting call topics
ERC-2023-STG ERC STARTING GRANTS
HORIZON.1.1.1 Frontier science
ERC-2023-STG ERC STARTING GRANTS