• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Thursday, October 30, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Biology

Charité leads on three new EU-funded projects

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
January 18, 2019
in Biology
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

More than €10 million in funding awarded to Charité

Researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have successfully convinced the EU Commission of the quality of their research proposals. As a result, the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program will provide funding for a total of nine collaborative research projects, three of which will be led by Charité. For its involvement in all nine of these projects, Charité will receive more than €10 million in funding.

The funded projects cover a wide range of topics, which include plans to develop a new treatment to prevent transplant rejection, human brain simulation, and the development of a technology platform for gene therapy. The next four years will see researchers from Charité work alongside numerous European partners to further develop their innovative approaches. “An achievement of this magnitude across different fields of medical research once again demonstrates the sheer strength of Charité’s research profile. This is an outstanding start to 2019 for Charité,” says the Dean of Charité, Prof. Dr. Axel Radlach Pries.

The EU-funded collaborative projects are:

ReSHAPE

In patients with autoimmune disorders, and in those undergoing organ transplantation or stem cell transfer, excessive inflammation can cause extensive damage to organs and tissues and may even lead to death. A new approach in the treatment of these patients uses regulatory T cells (Tregs) to restore the immune system to its natural balance. Once isolated from the patient’s blood, these cells can be expanded (increased in number) and their function stabilized. Reinjection into the patient can then restore the body’s normal inflammatory response and prevent further tissue damage. This can drastically improve the patient’s prognosis.

The ReSHAPE project will see researchers studying a range of different approaches aimed at improving the efficacy of these cell therapies. This will include the use of cutting-edge technologies such as the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique to develop new Treg-based products. The project’s ultimate aim is the development of a treatment alternative for patients with unwanted immune reactions who, at present, cannot be cured. The ReSHAPE project is being led by Prof. Dr. Petra Reinke, Founding Director of the Berlin Center for Advanced Therapies (BeCAT) and transplant specialist at the Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Regenerative Therapies (BCRT). The EU Commission will fund the ReSHAPE project from 1 January 2019 for a period of four years. The project will receive €13.1 million in funding, of which Charité has been allocated more than €4.1 million.

VirtualBrainCloud

Many patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease vary greatly in terms of their symptoms and disease progression, meaning that diagnostics and treatment should be tailored to their individual needs. The EU-funded ‘VirtualBrainCloud’ project aims to establish a cloud-based neuroinformatics platform capable of producing personalized brain simulations. This project will involve the collaboration of a number of international research groups and will be led by Prof. Dr. Petra Ritter of Charité’s Department of Neurology with Experimental Neurology. VirtualBrainCloud is an expansion of ‘The Virtual Brain’, a computer program which uses the brain’s structural architecture and neural connections to produce a simulated version. “We will now integrate data on molecular processes into our existing platform,” explains Prof. Ritter, who holds the BIH Johanna Quandt Professorship for Brain Simulation. It is hoped the platform will enable the personalized diagnosis and treatment of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. VirtualBrainCloud is a collaborative project involving 17 partner institutions. The project, which commenced on 1 December 2018, will receive more than €15 million in funding over four years, of which Charité will receive nearly €2 million.

ENDOSCAPE

Many diseases that are caused by a genetic defect – such as cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease and hemophilia – remain incurable. Gene therapy may provide relief but must overcome two problems. Firstly, it must be possible to deliver therapeutic genes to specific target cells in the body. Secondly, the therapeutic genes must enter the interior of these cells, but must not be destroyed. Initial gene therapy approaches use viruses to ferry therapeutic genes into cells. However, these techniques carry substantial risks and cannot be used for the delivery of other biomolecules. The ENDOSCAPE project aims to develop a new, non-viral gene delivery technology that will be capable of efficiently delivering both therapeutic genes and other therapeutic biomolecules. Led by Prof. Dr. Hendrik Fuchs of Charité’s Institute of Laboratory Medicine, Clinical Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry, the research team intends to use natural, plant-based substances known as glycosides to develop a gene technology platform that can be used to treat more than one specific disorder. Potential clinical applications may include the repair or replacement of defective genes and the targeted delivery of specific genes to destroy cancer cells. The ENDOSCAPE project will receive a total of €6.8 million over four years, starting on 1 January 2019. Approximately €1.4 million of this funding will go to Charité.

###

Involvement in EU-funded collaborative projects

Charité is a consortium partner in six further collaborative projects that are receiving funding via the Horizon 2020 program: ASCLEPIOS (eHealth), ATHENA (Endocrinology), EUCANCan (Personalized Medicine), EJP RD (Rare Diseases), GE Academy (Gender Equality) and PROTEIN (Nutrition Science). The EU Commission has allocated approximately €2.6 million in funding to support the subprojects hosted at Charité.

Media Contact
Manuela Zingl
[email protected]
49-304-505-70400
https://www.charite.de/en/service/press_reports/artikel/detail/charite_leitet_drei_neue_eu_verbundprojekte/

Tags: AlzheimerImmunology/Allergies/AsthmaMedicine/HealthMolecular Biologyneurobiology
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

How Protein Binding to Fraying DNA Unlocks the Mystery Behind a Global Illness

How Protein Binding to Fraying DNA Unlocks the Mystery Behind a Global Illness

October 30, 2025
UC Riverside Scientist Honored by American Federation for Aging Research

UC Riverside Scientist Honored by American Federation for Aging Research

October 30, 2025

New Study Explores Crucial Hormone in Fertility Preservation for Women with Cancer

October 30, 2025

Prodrug Florfenicol Amine Targets Resistant Mycobacterium abscessus

October 30, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Sperm MicroRNAs: Crucial Mediators of Paternal Exercise Capacity Transmission

    1292 shares
    Share 516 Tweet 323
  • Stinkbug Leg Organ Hosts Symbiotic Fungi That Protect Eggs from Parasitic Wasps

    312 shares
    Share 125 Tweet 78
  • ESMO 2025: mRNA COVID Vaccines Enhance Efficacy of Cancer Immunotherapy

    202 shares
    Share 81 Tweet 51
  • New Study Suggests ALS and MS May Stem from Common Environmental Factor

    136 shares
    Share 54 Tweet 34

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Survival Insights for 2021 WHO Glioma Patients

PFAS Levels Linked in Water and Southern California Adults

ECM, ROCK, and Polarity Orchestrate Lung Growth

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 67 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.