Final Report Summary - OXY-SENSE (OXY-SENSE - A biosensor, image analysis, and work flow system platform for the study of neuronal injury and assessment of cellular bioenergetics)
Ischaemic stroke and neurodegenerative disorders are leading causes of death and disability. Despite improvements in prevention and emergency treatments for stroke, current treatment regimes are limited in their effectiveness due to a lack of understanding of the development of the neuronal injury within the brain. This results at least in part from limitations in our understanding of why neurons die or survive after stroke. Likewise, for most fatal and progressive neurodegenerative disorders there currently is no cure, and only very limited treatment options exist that address the symptoms but not the cause of the disease. Therefore a need exists for more sensitive and specific sensors and diagnostic tools that are able to accelerate the discovery process and can be used in more complex test systems such as primary neuron cultures, organotypic cultures and living animals. Finally, the majority of chemical compounds developed in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry fail to enter the clinical phase due to intrinsic toxicity of the compounds. Hence there is an urgent need in the pharmaceutical industry to develop more integrated, effective test systems for drug action and drug toxicity analyses, and to implement new quality assurance guidelines into the R&D process. The OXYSENSE consortiums main aim was to carry out a programme of biomedical research with a major focus on the development of sensors and diagnostic platforms to describe the role of cellular bioenergetics and mitochondria in the pathogenesis of stroke and neurodegeneration. The focus of this technology-driven research was the development and application of novel extracellular and intracellular oxygen sensors, to develop and test new multiplexing assays relating to mitochondrial function and cell outcome, and to develop novel integrated work flow systems that include smart image analysis approaches. We have successfully tested new applications for previously developed oxygen sensors for their use in confocal cell imaging approaches and organotypic culture applications, and have begun to evaluate their potential for new in vivo imaging applications. Our industrial partner Luxcel Biosciences has developed targeted oxygen sensing probes that were tested in collaboration with the academic partners within the IAPP program. Our industrial partner Siemens has expanded its high content screening, image analysis and systems modelling capacities through the IAPP academia-industry secondments between its academic partners, and has developed novel, semantic image analysis work flow systems that have been successfully tested by the academic partners for future implementation into health research. The sensors and tools developed in this program hence will advance research of the scientific community into mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular bioenergetics and drug toxicity, and will provide a platform for further knowledge exchange between academic and industrial partners and the commercialisation of this research.
www.oxy-sense.eu
Contact: Prof. Jochen Prehn (jprehn@rcsi.ie)
www.oxy-sense.eu
Contact: Prof. Jochen Prehn (jprehn@rcsi.ie)