Descrizione del progetto
Riparazione del danno cerebrale attraverso l’integrazione della medicina rigenerativa con approccio neuroprotesico
I disturbi cerebrali hanno un impatto significativo sulla società e sui sistemi sanitari. La medicina rigenerativa tenta di ripristinare la funzione cerebrale ricostruendo il tessuto del cervello. La sfida principale nella riparazione cerebrale è il controllo dell’integrazione degli innesti di cellule o tessuto con il cervello ospite. Le neuroprotesi ispirate al cervello presentano dispositivi controllabili innovativi per rimpiazzare le funzioni cerebrali, ma non possono ricostruire la materia cerebrale. L’obiettivo del progetto HERMES, finanziato dall’UE, è creare un nuovo settore di medicina rigenerativa potenziata e fornire una prova di concetto a sostegno della fattibilità e della possibilità di controllo dell’integrazione di tessuto cerebrale bioingegnerizzato e proveniente dai mammiferi, per riparare il danno cerebrale. La soluzione innovativa si avvale di bioibridi intelligenti, realizzati attraverso l’integrazione di tessuto cerebrale bioingegnerizzato, microelettronica neuromorfica e intelligenza artificiale.
Obiettivo
Brain disorders are the most invalidating condition, exceeding HIV, cancer and heart ischemia, with significant impact on society and public health. Regenerative medicine is a promising branch of health science that aims at restoring brain function by rebuilding brain tissue. However, repairing the brain is one of the hardest challenges and we are still unable to effectively rebuild brain matter. Epilepsy is particularly challenging due to its dynamic nature caused by the relentless brain damage and aberrant rearrangements of brain rewiring. To overcome the biological uncertainty of canonical regenerative approaches, we propose an innovative solution based on intelligent biohybrids, made by the symbiotic integration of bioengineered brain tissue, neuromorphic microelectronics and artificial intelligence, to effectively drive self-repair of dysfunctional brain circuits and we validate it against animal models of epilepsy. HERMES fosters the emergence of a novel biomedical paradigm, rooted in the use of biohybrid neuronics (neural electronics), which we name enhanced regenerative medicine. To this end, HERMES will promote interdisciplinary cross-fertilization within and outside the consortium; it will extend the concepts of enhanced brain regeneration to philosophy, ethics, policy and society to foster the emergence of a new innovation eco-system. Intelligent biohybrids will represent a major breakthrough to advance brain repair research beyond regenerative medicine and neurotechnology alone; it will bring new knowledge in neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience and philosophy, and new neuromorphic technology and AI algorithms. HERMES will bring a giant conceptual leap that will shift the concept of biomedical interventions from treating to healing. In turn, it will potentially generate major returns on health care and society at large by bringing previously unimaginable possibilities to defeat disorders that represent today a global major burden of disease.
Campo scientifico
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologyepilepsy
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic health
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA virusesHIV
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncology
- natural sciencesphysical scienceselectromagnetism and electronicsmicroelectronics
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Invito a presentare proposte
Vedi altri progetti per questo bandoBando secondario
H2020-FETPROACT-2018-01
Meccanismo di finanziamento
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinatore
16163 Genova
Italia