Innovative peptides against cancer and pathogenic bacteria, with advances in science, biopharmaceutical drug development, product market targeting, training, and communication.
Funding Agency European Commission
Funding Programme Horizon 2020
Call/Topic H2020-MSCA-RISE-2014
Project reference 644167
Start date 2015.02.01
Duration 36 months
Total investment EUR 1 390 500 (EU contribution: EUR 850 500)
Project Beneficiaries
- Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes (iMM), Portugal;
- Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Spain;
- Universidad de Navarra (IESE Business School), Spain;
- Technophage, Portugal;
- Centro Atlantico del Medicamento (CEAMED), Spain;
- ProteoDesign, Spain.
Project Partners
- Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil
- University of Queensland (UQ), Australia
- Stanford University (SU), United Kingdom
- Instituto Ciência Hoje (ICH), Brazil
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644167.
Overview
INPACT aims at the pre-clinical development of innovative drugs and drug formulations against selected cancers (eg prostate cancer) and pathogenic bacteria (eg S. aureus).
The INPACT consortium allies the expertise of both academic and industrial R&D partners that contribute with their own unique technologies to achieve new drugs that are only possible to develop in an integrative effort. Academic partners have unique knowledge and technologies on supercharged viral proteins-derived cell-penetrating peptides (eg from Dengue virus) and ultra-resistant cyclic peptides that may be transferred to the industrial partners, which in turn have specialized proprietary technologies on anticancer and/or peptide drugs’ technologies.
The judicious exchange of knowledge among partners will lead to new resistant peptides for trans-barrier delivery of drugs (eg cyclic peptide-drug chimeras) and bacterial killing (both planktonic and biofilms). INPACT includes four leading academic partners (from Portugal, Spain, Australia, and Brazil) and three consolidated biotech SMEs (one from Portugal and two Spain).
In addition to the R&D project itself, INPACT involves at the highest possible level a top business school in Europe (IESE, Barcelona, Spain), a consolidated media partner specialised in science communication (Ciencia Hoje, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and experts in international science funding from one of the top US universities (University of Stanford). The consortium will be the perfect environment for young researchers to acquire knowledge and skills in science, technology, entrepreneurship, business, and communication so they can pro-actively tailor their career path in a life-long learning perspective. This is a contribution towards the advancement of Europe through the use of research and education for societal development and economic growth.
Project Videos
INPACT - Innovative peptides against cancer and pathogenic bacteria (video unaivalable)
Challenging metastatic breast cancer with the natural defensin PvD1 (video unaivalable)