Projects

Bone defects resulting from traumatic injuries, tumor resection and bone diseases represent one of the most pressing health problems in the aging European population.

Currently, treatment success in elderly patients is severely limited due to the declining functionality of bone cells during aging, which results from multiple cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic mechanisms. The aim of our project is to develop a new multidisciplinary approach to enhance the regeneration of bone defects in elderly, based on recent advances in cellular reprogramming and tissue engineering.

We are investigating extrinsic microenvironment components derived from young bone cells to enhance the function of aged or diseased bone cells from traumatology patients. Our aim is to develop novel, cell-free, off-the-shelf bone tissue substitutes with the capacity to improve bone healing.
In addition, our studies are providing new insights into bone regenerative mechanisms during aging and valuable human bone cell and bone tissue models applicable to basic biology studies and translational research.

Short title: “RejuvenateBone”
Funding Agency: European Comission Horizon 2020
Project type: Horizon 2020 MSCA Individual Fellowship
Project number: 657716
Project start: April 2015
Project duration: 24 months
Project status: Completed project

ENBA is part of the COST network (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), uniting experts in the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and engineering the study biological adhesion.

Bioadhesives are produced by a vast variety of animals: the salamander Ambystoma opacum, the snail Helix pomatia, the bobtail squid Idiosepius biserialis, Mytilus mussels and many more. Also plants rely on the secretion of adhesives, most noticeably in the sticky traps of carnivorous plants. Knowledge about these materials in terms of composition, structural design and interactions with surfaces is necessary to reveal the basic biochemical and mechanical principles involved in biological adhesion. The aim is to find adhesives which are not only equal to or better than common synthetically produced glues, but also distinguish themselves through better biocompatibility.

Corneal blindness is the second largest cause of blindness globally and while treatable, millions remain unnecessarily blind due to issues of access to transplantable tissue, lack of standardized treatments, and the lag in translating new regenerative medicine therapies to the clinic. The objective of Arrest Blindness is therefore to develop and validate new regenerative-based therapies addressing a spectrum of blinding disorders of the cornea. These conditions either have no effective current treatments, depend on a scarce supply of donor tissue, or non-standardized methods are hindering validation of promising regenerative treatments.

Arrest Blindness directly addressed the translation of regenerative medicine, bio-artificial organs, tissue engineered scaffolds, and advanced cell and gene therapies into clinical use t0 help to alleviate the worldwide problem of corneal blindness.

Age-related diseases continue to be a major challenge in our modern ageing society, where the number of people over 65 is expected to double within the next 50 years. Age is the most important risk factor for stroke, heart attacks, diabetes and many other chronic diseases. The translation of new findings is hampered by a lack of suitable preclinical models, validated endpoints or regulatory framework.

The main objective of MouseAGE was to form a network of European scientists, clinicians, industrial partners and regulatory affairs experts with multidisciplinary expertise to define best practice on preclinical interventions in mouse models of age and age-related disorders. By producing clear guidelines on issues such as endpoints, methodology and types of measurements as well as models, the translation of findings to the clinics can be accelerated.

Funding agency: COST Action
Project number: MB1402

Fluorescence microscopy is one of the core technologies for biomedical research and diagnostics. The large diversity of microscopy applications requires sophisticated, individually adapted image processing methods that are able to process huge amounts of data, high background signals as well as low contrast images. The correct identification of objects in micro- or nanometer range is crucial for diagnosing diseases, the prognosing their progress and examining the impact of medical treatments.

In the project NanoDetect we design the foundations of a radically new image processing software framework for biomedical researchers providing high throughput analysis of single molecules in cells. This makes image analysis independent of the researcher‘s personal knowledge and constitution. We develop software modules that combine image analysis functionality with machine learning and pattern recognition algorithms, automatically optimizing the parameters for each data processing step based upon statistical analysis and user feedback. Special consideration is given to the target group of researchers who do not necessarily have computer science knowledge, by adding user friendly interfaces as well as a web service for the NanoDetect framework.

Why do they die? Deciphering and quelling the lethal cues of immuno-inflammatory response in sepsis (Grant No: 203685).

 PI : Dr. Marcin F. Osuchowski (LBI Trauma, Austria)

Sepsis continues to be a major life-threatening condition in acute-care patients accounting for thousands of deaths annually, despite rapid progress in health care over the past decades in developed countries. The proposed project addressed the mechanisms and prevention of early mortality (SIRS) in experimental sepsis and its design focused on effective implementation of the “from bench to bedside” philosophy. The project consisted of three aims investigating acute immuno-inflammatory signalling triggered by a septic event.

Overall, the data generated during the project has filled out a number of gaps in understanding in pathophysiological process that lead to death in polymicrobial acute sepsis syndromes, specifically regarding changes occurring in the central nervous system and systemic immuno-inflammatory responses. Additionally, our targeted pre-clinical data aid in design and creation of pointed weapons needed to improve survival of septic patients. Specifically, our findings reinforce the notion that new drugs against sepsis should be offered selectively to carefully pre-defined narrow cohorts of septic patients who have the best chance to benefit. Such tactics have another great advantage – it may spare life of septic subjects whose fragile immuno-inflammatory defence balance could be worsened by unnecessary treatments.

Coordinator: Rui L. Reis (University of Minho, Portugal)

This Project involves 3 Universities from Germany, Porugal and North Ireland, Red Cross from Austria and 2 top European companies – Germany and Belgium. Started in January 2004.