HIGH-RESOLUTION FUNCTIONAL OPTICAL IMAGING OF CHEMORESISTANCEbroad
CHEM-SCAN · Horizon Europe grant · 2026-03-01–2030-02-28
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-EIC-2025-PATHFINDEROPEN · scheme HORIZON-EIC · topic HORIZON-EIC-2025-PATHFINDEROPEN. CORDIS record →
Objective
The development of chemoresistance, i.e. the ability of cancer cells to evade treatment, has become a major challenge for current cancer therapy and significantly contributes to most tumor relapses and deaths. Changes in the way how sub-populations of cancer cells process metabolites have been identified as an indication of tumor chemoresistance: multiple different metabolites were found and identified in several chemoresistant tumors, which are attributed to facilitate tumor cell survival under chemotherapeutic stress. Identifying cells that can resist chemotherapy by adapting metabolite processing is, however, difficult, because this requires assessing the biochemical state of many cells at the single cell level and for multiple metabolites, simultaneously. A key limitation is that currently no single non-invasive platform exists that can be utilized in a highly parallelized fashion to monitor chemoresistance at the cellular and tissue level. CHEM-SCAN will develop novel fluorescent probes for the energetic/reductive state of cells, metabolites, and metabolic indicators that can assess chemoresistance of single cells. These probes will be assessed with highest sensitivity and spatiotemporal resolution by CHEM-SCAN's novel high-speed fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) platform across multiple length scales. This FLIM platform will allow biomedical and clinical researchers to determine and follow the individual responses of human cancer cells to chemotherapy, enabling the assessment of individualized treatment options. Using the platform, alternative options for the individualized treatment of chemoresistant tumors, such as the combination of multiple drugs or the testing of new drugs can rapidly be conducted in-vitro without posing additional burdens on the patient. At the same time, CHEM-SCAN will provide a research platform for the continued quest for a better understanding of chemoresistance and will be able to scale well beyond just this initial target.
Beneficiaries (5)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNIVERSITAET BIELEFELD | DE | coordinator | €799,800 | |
| Twinkle Bioscience | FR | participant | €600,000 | Yes |
| UNIVERSITAT WIEN | AT | participant | €599,632 | |
| KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN | BE | participant | €599,525 | |
| PicoQuant GmbH | DE | participant | €399,250 | Yes |
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