Category: Our News

Challenge: Showing architectural similarities with the real human brain, brain organoids offer a promising avenue for understanding human biology, disease processes and for the development and validation of drugs to treat brain-related diseases. By engineering personalized organoids from the reprogrammed cells of patients, scientists can study disease in a very individualized way. However, brain organoids are…

Challenge: Pancreatic islets play a critical role in diabetes development with about 50% of their function being lost by the time pre-diabetic patients are diagnosed. Levels of pancreatic ß-cells are currently approximated through measurements of blood glucose, C-peptide, and insulin levels. There is therefore an urgent need to develop biomarkers that more accurately monitor the physiological…

Challenge: Blood level of cholesterol-rich low-density lipoproteins (LDLc) is directly correlated with the incidence of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk. Statins, currently the most prescribed class of lipid-lowering drugs, reduce LDLc by increasing LDL receptor (LDLR) gene expression. However, while being on maximally tolerated lipid-lowering therapy, a majority of high-risk patients still have uncontrolled LDLc and remain…

Challenge: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a condition associated with loss of blood vessels in the lungs leading to a gradual increase in shortness of breath and substantial disability and mortality. The development of effective drugs is impeded by the lack of non-invasive tests to detect the disease at an early stage and to follow its progression.…

Challenge: Islet transplantation is an efficient therapy to reverse type 1 diabetes. However, the long-term function of the graft is not ensured, and the problem of autoimmunity remains. An interesting alternative consists of a bioartificial pancreas in which islets are encapsulated. However, the islet environment within such a pancreas still needs to be improved to better…

Competition:SynergiQc 2017Funding:$683,665 / 2 yearsBeginning:July 2017 Challenge: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) affects 1 in 11 individuals worldwide and leads to severe complications such as diabetic nephropathy (DN) that is present in about 40% of T2D patients. DN progresses from subclinical disease (microalbuminuria) to overt nephropathy, end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis or transplantation. Identifying T2D patients at…

Challenge: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is the leading cause of cardiovascular and renal diseases. Although many treatments are available, they only partially reduce the risk of serious complications in diabetic patients. As a first step towards reducing diabetes-related morbidity and mortality, the team had developed a Polygenic Risk Score (PRS) in T2D Caucasian patients that combines data on sex, age of onset and diabetes duration to better predict risks of…

Challenge: The low efficacy of treatment is partially due to the heterogeneity of disease and population. Individuals do not respond the same way to treatment and can have very different clinical trajectories that are difficult to predict. In order to improve treatment efficacy, precision medicine approaches need to be considered. A refined selection of the population…

Challenge: Diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration are the leading causes of blindness in working age and elderly populations. While anti-VEGFs revolutionized treatment of retinal vasculopathies, currently available drugs can cause neuronal degeneration. Besides, over 40% of patients respond poorly to these treatments, leaving patients with no alternative, ultimately leading them to blindness. There is…

Challenge: Studies of intracellular protein-protein interactions (PPI) is emerging as an important drug discovery tool. Since many relevant targets can only be affected by drugs candidates in living cells, specific screening methods are implemented using sophisticated microscopy systems. A way to measure these interactions in cellulo is through the implementation of Förster Resonance Energy Transfer…