Innovating Works

Bio-ICD

Financiado
Biological auto detection and termination of heart rhythm disturbances
Imagine a heart that could no longer suffer from life-threatening rhythm disturbances, and not because of pills or traumatizing electroshocks from an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) device. Instead, this heart has bec... Imagine a heart that could no longer suffer from life-threatening rhythm disturbances, and not because of pills or traumatizing electroshocks from an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) device. Instead, this heart has become able to rapidly detect & terminate these malignant arrhythmias fully on its own, after gene transfer. In order to explore this novel concept of biological auto-detection & termination of arrhythmias, I will investigate how forced expression of particular engineered proteins could i) allow cardiac tissue to become a detector of arrhythmias through rapid sensing of acute physiological changes upon their initiation. And how after detection, ii) this cardiac tissue (now as effector), could terminate the arrhythmia by generating a painless electroshock through these proteins. To this purpose, I will first explore the requirements for such detection & termination by studying arrhythmia initiation and termination in rat models of atrial & ventricular arrhythmias using optical probes and light-gated ion channels. These insights will guide computer-based screening of proteins to identify those properties allowing effective arrhythmia detection & termination. These data will be used for rational engineering of the proteins with the desired properties, followed by their forced expression in cardiac cells and slices to assess anti-arrhythmic potential & safety. Promising proteins will be expressed in whole hearts to study their anti-arrhythmic effects and mechanisms, after which the most effective ones will be studied in awake rats. This unexplored concept of self-resetting an acutely disturbed physiological state by establishing a biological detector-effector system may yield unique insight into arrhythmia management. Hence, this could provide distinctively innovative therapeutic rationales in which a diseased organ begets its own remedy, e.g. a Biologically-Integrated Cardiac Defibrillator (Bio-ICD). ver más
28/02/2023
1M€
Duración del proyecto: 74 meses Fecha Inicio: 2016-12-15
Fecha Fin: 2023-02-28

Línea de financiación: concedida

El organismo H2020 notifico la concesión del proyecto el día 2023-02-28
Línea de financiación objetivo El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
ERC-2016-STG: ERC Starting Grant
Cerrada hace 8 años
Presupuesto El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a 1M€
Líder del proyecto
ACADEMISCH ZIEKENHUIS LEIDEN No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico TRL 4-5