Cancer Research - Europa

Aim
The general aim of the project is to design and evaluate strategies
of anti-tumour angiogenesis and anti-tumour immune
therapies and their combination in murine models of some of
the most prevalent forms of human solid tumours. It will
include the identification, modification and use of key regulatory
molecules of vessel growth and immune defence and the
development of methods to specifically and efficiently target
tumours and their metastasis.
Expected results
We will undertake a concentrated eff ort to identify targets
and develop methods for interference with vessel growth.
Furthermore, we will develop techniques to target tumour
endothelium by viruses and progenitor cells,methodsthat
could be usedto also reachdistant metastases via the blood
stream and not only the primary tumour. In addition, we will
explore the use of innate receptors of NK cells to detect malignant
cells and to boost the T-cell response of the immune
system with the help of dendritic cells. Weanticipate thatasingle
method,depending on the individual tumour, may not
be sufficient, but the development of several techniques
based on diff erent principles and their tumour-specific or
combined application may be successful.
For this purpose we combine laboratories with diff erential
expertise, each having either identified a specific target molecule
or developed a specific technique for targeting tumours.
We will combine the expertise, molecules and techniques and
comparatively evaluate diff erent strategies in corresponding
models of human carcinomas.
Potential applications
The results of this project will be disseminated and exploited
on three levels:
• basic molecular medicine research level: all expected
findings with the angiogenesis inhibitors and immune
stimulators will be important to improve understanding
of the role of vessel formation and of anti-tumour
immune responses for cancer. These basic findings will
be published in quality scientific journals;
• clinical level: it is anticipated that our findings and developed
preclinical methods will have impact on the design
and further development of clinical protocols for the
treatment of cancer;
• company level: key novel molecules, findings and techniques
will be patented and, together with patents
available, used to develop reagents and protocol for
gene-therapy of solid tumours.
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Coordinator
Erhard Hofer
Dept. of Vascular Biology
and Thrombosis Research
Centre for Biomolecular Medicine
and Pharmacology
Medical University Vienna
Vienna, Austria
erhard.hofer@meduniwien.ac.at
Partners
Seyedhossein Aharinejad
University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria
seyedhossein.aharinejad@meduniwien.ac.at
Michael Detmar
Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Zurich, Switzerland
michael.detmar@pharma.ethz.ch
Hidde Haisma
University of Groningen
Groningen, The Netherlands
h.j.haisma@rug.nl
Peter Vajkoczy
Charité Universitätsmedizin
Berlin, Germany
vajkoczy@yahoo.de
Ofer Mandelboim
Hebrew University
Hadassah Medical School
Jerusalem, Israel
oferman@md2.huji.ac.il
Karsten Mahnke
University of Heidelberg
Heidelberg, Germany
Karsten.Mahnke@med.uni-heidelberg.de
Melvyn Little
Affimed Therapeutics AG
Heidelberg, Germany
m.little@affimed.com
Karl-Heinz Preisegger
EccoCell Biotechnology and
Stem Cell Therapy GmbH
Graz, Austria
karl-hein.preisegger@eccocell.com
Project number
Project number
LSHC-CT-2005-518178
EC contribution
€ 3 005 000
Duration
36 months
Starting date
01/11/2005
Instrument
STREP
Project website
www.tumortargeting.eu
CANCER RESEARCH PROJECTS FUNDED UNDER THE SIXTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME