In-house research

PathChip@CERIC

Advanced bio-inspired multiplexing platform for host-pathogen interaction screening

 

 

Participants

Project Coordinator: Joint Research Center
Project Partners: Central European Research Infrastructure Consortium, Elettra – Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A.
Contact point: projects@ceric-eric.eu

Project Summary

The Covid-19 pandemic evidenced clearly the need for developing new methodologies for understanding human/animal host-pathogen interactions and new technologies for advanced medical countermeasures and rapid detection of airborne pathogens. A common spreading mechanism of pandemic-prone viruses is via airborne routes, in which the viral concentration depends on the presence of highly infective people and several ambient factors (air conditioning systems, ventilation, air purification, …). The interactions of viral particles with cells of our respiratory system is thus a key process that initiates the internalization and infection pathways.

The goal of this project is to join the techniques and expertise available at the CERIC facilities of the Elettra laboratories (NanoInnovation and SISSI-Bio) and the JRC Nanobiotechnology laboratory to develop an advanced platform to study host-pathogens interactions. This platform will enable to a) investigate the interaction mechanisms between Virus Like Particles (VLP) (as surrogate of coronaviruses, influenza viruses, etc) and the membrane receptors expressed in different compartments of our respiratory system, and b) to assess the capacity of therapeutic antibodies to neutralize VLPs through binding to immunoprotective antigens, e.g. spike proteins or hemagglutinin. The potential application to other virus families and species (e.g. animal pathogens) will also be explored.

Total budget for the implementation of the action: EUR 283.000

Timeline

Start Date: 3 April 2025
End Date: 3 April 2027