MELCART
Financiado
Engineering soft microdevices for the mechanical characterization and stimulatio...
Engineering soft microdevices for the mechanical characterization and stimulation of microtissues
As living beings move, touch, or grow, the tissues within them are subject to mechanical stresses that act over minutes, hours, or days. These efforts play a critical role at all stages of life, from early embryonic development to...
As living beings move, touch, or grow, the tissues within them are subject to mechanical stresses that act over minutes, hours, or days. These efforts play a critical role at all stages of life, from early embryonic development to homeostasis in adult tissues or disease progression. Mechanobiology has emerged in response to this realization and has led to many discoveries on mechanosensitive pathways in individual cells. However we are still very far from relating the single-cell behavior to the response within a real tissue that contains mixtures of cell types which are organized in complex 3D structures. In this project we will expand mechanobiology to 3D tissues by developing a new class of micro-devices, based on soft robotics and metamaterials, for active mechanical forcing of spheroids and organoids. We will couple this active forcing with multiscale cytometry methods that we have pioneered, in addition to concepts from many-body soft matter physics. This will allow us to understand how the rheological responses of individual cells add up to result in the global tissue rheology. The outcome is a new paradigm to probe phenotypic changes, e.g. the epithelial-mesenchymal transition in a cancer model or the cellular differentiation and 3D organization in a maturing organoid. Conversely we will map how global mechanical stresses are transferred to individual cells that in turn respond to the forces locally. This will allow us to engineer dynamical forcing strategies to guide the biological response of specific populations within a complex co-culture. When applied to developing organoids this will lead to strategies to mature individual cell types, in view of using them for cell therapy. In the case of cancer models we will identify mechanosensitive pathways that can be targeted by drugs to treat real tumors. By working on the joint cutting edge of technology, physics, and biology, we will manipulate in vitro models with real impact on human health.
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Duración del proyecto: 59 meses
Fecha Inicio: 2025-01-01
Fecha Fin: 2029-12-31
Fecha Fin: 2029-12-31
Línea de financiación: concedida
El organismo HORIZON EUROPE notifico la concesión del proyecto
Línea de financiación objetivo
El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
ERC-2023-ADG:
ERC ADVANCED GRANTS
Cerrada
hace 1 año
Presupuesto
El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a
3M€
Líder del proyecto
ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE
No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico
TRL
4-5
Perfil tecnológico
TRL
4-5