EIC Pathfinder
PLAST_CELL is an EIC pathfinder project to develop a novel approach for assessing and quantifying a cancer cell’s ability to respond to environmental stress that threatens its survival, a key indicator of tumour progression and aggressiveness.
Objectives
- To develop a microfluidic-based biomimetic imaging platform capable of measuring morphometric and molecular data in live cells.
- To combine super-resolution microscopy with a device modelling the physiological conditions and the dynamic stress that cancer cells face when proliferating and colonizing different organs to study their phenotype.
- To offer a new way to quantify tumour cell plasticity and predict aggressiveness using automated microscopy image quantification algorithms, blending mathematical models, and machine learning, with a focus on computational morphometry.
Our role
- Participate in the development of a microfluidic based cell-confining platform to study single cell response to micro-environment changes (e.g. DO, pH, mechanical stress, nutrients, drugs) and asses their phenotype.
- Find strategies to combine, integrate and commercialize the different technologies developed in the project into a tumour progression and aggressiveness prediction tool platform.
Expected Results
- A customisable micro-environment controlling system to mimic various physical cellular environments by controlling the cells mechanical stress and local media shear-stress, temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen concentration.
- Integrated imaging system to achieve real-time imaging of the confined cells and their morpho dynamics (Figure 1).
- Automated assessment of the micro- cellular phenotypic changes (represented in figure 2).
References
- CORDIS. (2022, March 24). A multiplexed biomimetic imaging platform for assessing single ... - Cordis. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101046620
- Celià-Terrassa, T., Bastian, C., Liu, D. D., Ell, B., Aiello, N. M., Wei, Y., ... & Kang, Y. (2018). Hysteresis control of epithelial-mesenchymal transition dynamics conveys a distinct program with enhanced metastatic ability. Nature communications, 9(1), 5005.3)
This project has been funded by The European Union, under the grant agreement n° 101046620.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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Our expertise combines Microfluidic, 3DCell culture, Microscopy, Omics and artificial intelligence.
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