[PWC-MEDIA] Persbericht - Europe looks to cells for a healthier future - LifeTime initiative

From: "Mailbox Communication (Hubrecht)" <communication@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "pwc-media@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <pwc-media@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2019 15:18:08 +0000

[https://www.mdc-berlin.de/system/files/2018-03/LifeTime_visual.jpg]Europe ;
looks to cells for a healthier future

Our body’s cells are constantly changing. But which of these changes are
healthy developments and which lead to serious diseases? This is what LifeTime,
a new transnational and interdisciplinary initiative of leading European
researchers, aims to discover. The consortium is jointly coordinated by the Max
Delbrück Center in Berlin and the Institut Curie in Paris, with the Helmholtz
Association and the CNRS. It has now cleared an important hurdle: LifeTime will
be given one million euros and one year to develop a plan to embed its vision
for a healthier future within the European research and innovation landscape.

How can we detect the first signs of disease as early as possible? Could closer
investigation at the cellular level help to quickly prevent disease progression
through appropriate treatment? The European Union is now investing a million
euros over a one-year period to devise the plan for a fundamentally new
approach to understanding the constant changes within cells and their
relationships to one another, thus creating the foundation for the precision
medicines of the future. These funds will go to the international LifeTime
consortium, which is jointly coordinated by the Max Delbrück Center for
Molecular Medicine (MDC) and the Institut Curie.

The two largest European research organizations – Germany’s Helmholtz
Association and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France –
are playing a major role in the project. More than 120 scientists at 53
institutions in 18 European countries are supporting the LifeTime consortium,
as are more than 60 partners from industry. The European Union will
concurrently fund the preparation of five other potential research initiatives.
After the first year of funding, it will be up to the European Union to decide
if any of them will be continued as a large-scale research initiative.

Precise therapeutic strategies
If a 58-year-old woman experiences a heart attack, there is currently only one
option available to her. Physicians will use a cardiac catheter to look for
obstructed or narrowed blood vessels and then treat her according to textbook
protocols. The procedure might look different in the future: Physicians first
take a tiny sample at the site of the heart attack. They then sequence the RNA
which is expressed there by the DNA in individual cells, thereby identifying
the cell aggregates that have become inflamed and that can either heal the
aftereffects of the heart attack or cause additional damage.

What is crucial here is the development of innovative technologies that enable
scientists to not only analyze cell populations, but also study individual
cells in detail. Data gathered this way can be used by physicians to design
precise therapeutic strategies.

This vision of precision medicine cannot be realized by only gathering human
behavioral data from smartphones and wearable microcomputers – so-called
wearables. Instead, it requires an understanding of how individual cells in our
body change over time. That is because cells are not static components, but
rather dynamic units that undergo constant transformation. Even when we are
healthy, our cells develop and multiply, form tissues with numerous other
cells, acquire new characteristics, or simply age all the time. Such change can
be a normal development or lay the foundation for disease. Cells are especially
prone to change over the course of the disease process.

Unlocking the future: single-cell biology, organoids, and AI
LifeTime’s research teams bring together cutting-edge technologies and by
collaborating within the project and they can significantly push forward their
development in Europe. For example, miniature organs grown in the petri dish –
so-called organoids – and other innovative system such as new single-cell
biology techniques – recently selected as Science’s breakthrough of 2018 – play
a crucial role here. The organoids derived from patients’ stem cells enable the
development of personalized disease models. Combined with the genome editing
tool CRISPR, as well as state-of-the-art microscopy, and other models they will
help scientists understand how cells stay healthy or progress towards disease
and react to therapeutics.

The experiments – performed using high-throughput methods – generate huge
amounts of data. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are therefore
required for the analysis. The computational strategies identify patterns in
the transformation of cells and can, for example, predict the onset of a
disease or how a disease will progress. Together with mathematical models that
enable the reconstruction of the cells’ past development, it is thus possible
to infer how healthy cells become unhealthy cells. The scientists are also
searching for central controls that can reverse or even completely prevent
disease-causing changes.

The proposed groundbreaking initiative brings together not only researchers
from the fields of biology, physics, computer science, mathematics, and
medicine, but also experts from disciplines such as sociology, ethics, and
economics. LifeTime researchers plan to include the public in their work by
holding consultations early on to collect wider views and opinions on LifeTime
and how it can meet the needs of European society. It is anticipated that the
LifeTime initiative will significantly impact the pharma, biotech, and data
processing industries, as well as other sectors, while also positively
influencing Europe’s competitiveness.

More than 60 companies, major European research organizations such as the
Helmholtz Association in Germany, the National Centre for Scientific Research
(CNRS) in France, the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and the EU-LIFE Alliance, as well
as several national science academies are already supporting LifeTime.
“LifeTime is an outstanding project of European pioneers. This
interdisciplinary and international cooperation has the potential to raise
health research, and thus medical care to a new level. Therefore, we are very
pleased that the EU is financing the LifeTime consortium. LifeTime is in the
best sense: research for people," says Otmar D. Wiestler, President of the
Helmholtz Association.

A European vision
LifeTime will be receiving EU funding for one year to prepare a detailed plan
for a ten-year research initiative. “This is a huge opportunity,” says
Professor Nikolaus Rajewsky, who heads the MDC’s Berlin Institute for Medical
Systems Biology (BIMSB), a hot spot for single-cell analyses. He is one of the
two coordinators of the research consortium. “All of LifeTime’s members are
among the best in their respective fields. They are doing visionary work. We
are going to use this year to intensify our collaboration, share our vision and
extend our network within Europe and beyond.” A launch conference will be held
in Berlin from May 6 to 7, 2019, where the consortium’s members will introduce
LifeTime and share information on how LifeTime plans to strengthen life
sciences and healthcare in Europe.

The exact diseases the LifeTime initiative will focus on have yet to be
selected. Refining the choice of disease will be a priority and will take into
account a multitude of factors: “Europe’s citizens face a wide variety of
medical conditions. During the first year, part of the plan is to determine
which diseases are most amenable to our emerging technologies and models,” says
Geneviève Almouzni, co-coordinator of the project, Research Director at the
CNRS and director of the Research Center of the Institut Curie from 2013 to
2018. “We will do this with the aid of citizens, health professionals and
policy makers. We foresee, that the diseases could include cancers but also
heart diseases, nervous system disorders, or other diseases.”

International consortium
LifeTime is the shared vision of more than 120 leading scientists at over 50
renowned organizations across Europe, who selected 18 partners to submit the
proposal.

Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres • French National Centre for
Scientific Research (CNRS) • Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) •
Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
•Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) • University of
Basel • University of Zurich • Central European Institute of Technology • Max
Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics • Max Planck Institute for
Molecular Genetics • German Cancer Research Center • Max Delbrück Center for
Molecular Medicine • German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases • Helmholtz
Zentrum München • Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology •
Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research • Saarland University • Technical
University of Munich • Julius-Maximilians-Universität • Biotech Research &
Innovation Centre (Copenhagen) • Aarhus University • University of Copenhagen •
Centre for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona) • French National Institute of Health
and Medical Research (Inserm) • Institut Curie • University of Montpellier •
University of Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier • MINES ParisTech • Institute for
Molecular Medicine Finland • Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of
Athens • Weizmann Institute of Science • Hebrew University of Jerusalem •
Sapienza University of Rome • National Institute of Molecular Genetics (Milan)
• University of Naples Federico II • University of Padua • University of Milan
• European Institute of Oncology • Netherlands Cancer Institute • Radboud
University • University Medical Center Utrecht • Hubrecht Institute/Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences • Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência •
Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences • Iuliu
Haţieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca • Karolinska
Institutet • MRC Human Genetics Unit • University of Edinburgh • Wellcome
Sanger Institute • Babraham Institute • European Molecular Biology Laboratory
(EMBL) – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) • The Francis Crick
Institute

Further information
The LifeTime initiative<https://lifetime-fetflagship.eu/>
LifeTime – a visionary proposal for an EU
Flagship<https://www.mdc-berlin.de/news/press/lifetime-visionary-proposal-eu-flagship>
EU Flagship initiative for visionary scientific
projects<https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/fet-flagships>
Launch conference
website<https://lifetime-fetflagship.eu/index.php/lifetime-launch-event/>
Hans Clevers Group<https://www.hubrecht.eu/research-groups/clevers-group/>
Alexander van Oudenaarden
Group<https://www.hubrecht.eu/research-groups/van-oudenaarden-group/>
Cell by cell to the breakthrough of the
year<https://www.mdc-berlin.de/news/press/zelle-fuer-zelle-zum-durchbruch-des-jahres>

Photos
Profile pictures of Hans
Clevers<https://www.hubrecht.eu/app/uploads/2019/01/Clevers1.jpg> (credit:
Thijs Rooimans / Hubrecht Institute) and Alexander van
Oudenaarden<https://www.hubrecht.eu/app/uploads/2019/01/vanOudenaarden1.jpg>
(credit: Thijs Rooimans / Hubrecht Institute)
High-resolution
image<https://www.mdc-berlin.de/system/files/2018-12/organoids_rybak-wolf.jpg>:
With the aid of mini organs - such as brain organoids - the techniques of
single cell analysis can also be applied to human tissue. Researchers can see
how human cells mature over the course of a lifetime, how tissue regenerates,
and which changes lead to diseases. (credit: Agnieszka Rybak Wolf, Lab of
Nikolaus Rajewsky at BIMSB / MDC)
LifeTime cell visual
<https://www.mdc-berlin.de/system/files/2018-03/LifeTime_visual.jpg> – Credit:
Spencer Phillips, EMBL-EBI.

Press contacts

Scientists

Hans Clevers is group leader at the Hubrecht Institute, professor of Molecular
Genetics at the University Medical Center Utrecht and Utrecht University,
Research Director of the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology and
Oncode Investigator. He is available for interviews in English and Dutch.
E-mail: h.clevers@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:h.clevers@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Alexander van Oudenaarden is director of the Hubrecht Institute, group leader,
professor of Quantitative Biology of Gene Regulation at the University Medical
Center Utrecht and Utrecht University and Oncode Investigator. He is available
for interviews in English and Dutch. E-mail:
a.vanoudenaarden@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:a.vanoudenaarden@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Annelien Bredenoord is professor of Ethics in Biomedical Innovation at the
University Medical Center Utrecht and University Utrecht. She is available for
interviews in English and Dutch. E-mail:
A.L.Bredenoord@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:A.L.Bredenoord@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Communications Departments

Melanie Fremery-Laarman
Hubrecht Institute
Communications Officer
+31 6 83 59 65 48
m.fremery@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:m.fremery@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Sandra van der Hoogt-Geskes
University Medical Center Utrecht
Communications Advisor
+31 6 5341 21 80
S.Geskes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:S.Geskes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

[PWC-MEDIA] Persbericht - Europe looks to cells for a healthier future - LifeTime initiative

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