Description du projet
Un dispositif d’imagerie cellulaire compact pour aider les chercheurs à identifier de nouveaux médicaments
La pandémie de COVID-19 représente un lourd fardeau économique pour le secteur des soins de santé. Toutefois, il est nécessaire de comprendre tous les tenants et les aboutissants des voies de transmission de la maladie pour pouvoir rapidement développer des vaccins et des médicaments visant à lutter contre les menaces sanitaires à venir. Le projet CoCID, financé par l’UE, se base sur l’idée selon laquelle les changements de taille et de structure des organites cellulaires, à mesure que la maladie pénètre une cellule, constituent des indicateurs précoces. La microscopie à rayons X mous (SXM, pour «soft X-ray microscopy») est la seule technologie actuellement capable de mesurer la taille et la structure des organites. Toutefois, les installations de SXM actuels, appelés synchrotrons, sont énormes et peu accessibles aux chercheurs. En tenant compte de cet état de fait, le projet entend développer un dispositif d’imagerie cellulaire compact pour rendre la technologie SXM accessible aux chercheurs spécialisés dans les maladies et la découverte de médicaments.
Objectif
The cost of influenza virus care in the EU was approx. €29 billion in 2018, or 2% of total healthcare costs. The costs to EU state governments for dealing with the Covid-19 virus could be 50 times that of influenza, effectively doubling normal healthcare costs. The EU needs to be better prepared to quickly develop vaccines and drugs to deal with future outbreaks but this can only be achieved with a full understanding of disease pathways.
The central idea in project CoCID is that changes in the size and structure of cellular organelle, as any disease infiltrates a cell, are seen as early warning indicators of that disease. The only technology available today that can image through a whole cell, measuring organelle size and structure, is soft x-ray microscopy (SXM).
The problem is that the illumination required for a soft x-ray microscope is currently only available at four football-stadium sized facilities, called synchrotrons, and only 2% of the disease research community have access. The challenge addressed by project CoCID is to make SXM available to the wider disease research and drug discovery community, while also showing how technology improvements enhance its ability to revolutionise cell structure imaging.
SiriusXT’s breakthrough innovation is its ability to miniaturize the synchrotron into a small chamber that will easily fit on a laboratory bench, providing the same type of soft x-ray illumination as the synchrotron. This novel and patented innovation, based on a laser-produced plasma (LPP) design, will give researchers 24/7 access to this imaging modality in their own labs.
To demonstrate impact, the scope of the project has been narrowed to focus only on diseases relating to viral and bacterial infection, allowing a consortium of leading virologists and imaging experts to collaborate in elucidating the cellular origins of viral infection in a range of applications while increasing the EU’s readiness for future viral pandemics.
Champ scientifique
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiologypandemics
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA virusesinfluenza
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA virusescoronaviruses
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinateur
4 Dublin
Irlande