R&D

Objective:

Worldwide, lung cancer occurs in 1.82 million people and results in 1.6 million deaths per year. In Europe, the incidence rate for lung cancer is around 41.9 new cases over 100,000 people per year, with 35.2 deaths over 100,000 people per year. Predictive and precision medicine will have an enormous development in the next decade and will radically reform the therapy of chronic diseases, thanks to the active interaction between ‘population data’, ‘information commons’ and ‘knowledge network’. Precision medicine, or the personalization of the therapy, and predictive medicine, or the ability to identify a person’s sensitivity and the effectiveness of a specific drug, are today the new fields of application to enable the best care and improve the people life quality. The “new treatment process” is the result of science, data and technology.

The project will generate Lab-On-Chip prototypes for the development of biological models (organoids), for the extraction and purification of extracellular bio-vesicles (exosomes) and for liquid biopsy. A Digital platform for the combined organization and management of clinical, molecular and biofunctional data will be created as well as a new archive to store tissues, nucleic acid sequences and organoids.

Fluody will synthesize new molecules useful as reporters for SERS (Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy), for liquid biopsy Lab on Chip prototypes.

Objective:

To develop new highly selective fluorescent probes for diagnostic applications and Fluorescence Image Guided Surgery. Contrast Media are used in vivo Imaging to visualize tissues and organs. In vivo Imaging procedures are moving from the traditional perfusion imaging to molecular imaging thanks to the development of selective probes targeted to accumulate where there is an alteration of biological processes at cellular and molecular level. These new technologies are applied in oncologic field in order to visualize the pathological tissue through the highly selective accumulation of the probes. In addition to the technologies based on radioactive contrast media (PET and SPECT), Fluorescence in vivo Imaging is gaining more and more applications. Imaging based on fluorescence uses the feature of some molecules to absorb specific wavelength and to re-emit radiation at a longer wavelength through fluorescent emission. The detection of the fluorescent emission allows to visualize the probe which interacts with the pathological tissue. Fluorescence Imaging has potential application in diagnosis and in image guided surgery. The project is focused on head, neck and colorectal tumors which can be diagnosed endoscopically.

By coupling new fluorescent dyes with specific molecular vectors, we will get selective fluorescent probes which will be tested in vitro and in vivo to determine their efficiency for a potential clinic translation.

Fluody participated as a partner to the following research projects co-funded by Regione Piemonte with the University of Turin as project leader