HEИндивидуална стипендия2023–2025

FaBriCATion · Fast Brillouin microscopy for phase transition

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2023-10-01 → 2025-09-30
Финансиране от ЕС: 188 590 €
Участници: 1
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Механичните промени в протеините, като превръщането им от течни в твърди при болести като Алцхаймер, се изследват чрез специална микроскопия. Това помага за откриване на ранни симптоми и оценка на ефективността на лекарствата.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Fast Brillouin microscopy for phase transition

Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, represent one of the most significant socio-economic challenges for the European Union's aging population. At the molecular level, these conditions are characterized by the liquid-to-solid phase transition of proteins (eg, Tau and TDP43), leading to the formation of pathological aggregates. While traditional biology focuses on chemical signaling, the FaBriCATion project was motivated by the urgent need to understand the mechanical biomarkers —specifically changes in viscoelasticity—that precede clinical symptoms. The primary objective was to develop an advanced Brillouin microscopy platform capable of non-invasive, high-speed, and high-resolution mechanical mapping of living cells. The project's pathway to impact was designed to bridge the gap between optical engineering and clinical diagnosis. By providing a tool that can quantify the "stiffness" of protein condensates, the project aimed to provide pharmaceutical researchers with a new metric for drug efficacy. In the strategic context of the European Research Area (ERA) , this project sought to reinforce Europe's leadership in biophotonics by creating a robust infrastructure that could be shared across multidisciplinary research groups.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Multiple human diseases ranging from neurodegenerative disorders (such as Alzheimer´s disease) to cancer have been found to be linked with biomolecular mechanical properties change (phase transitions PTs). While these diseases have impacted many human beings (50 million for only AD), the causes of most of these diseases are still mysterious, and there is yet no effective treatment. To understand the pathological role of PTs and their corresponding potential as a therapeutic target for these diseases, it is crucial to probe the mechanical properties of live cells. Current standard approaches to measuring the mechanical properties have important limitations: requirement of contact force (atomic force microscopy and optical coherence elastography) and lack of cellular resolution (ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging). An emerging tool, Brillouin microscopy (BM), provides the capability of “imaging” the mechanical properties through probing the so-called Brillouin scattering spectrum in a non-invasive manner with 3D sub-cellular resolution. Its advent has led to a wide range of biological applications. However, the acquisition time for a standard confocal microscope size image is in the order of tens of minutes, owing to the trade-off between the measurement speed and the spectral resolution. Thus, it prevents the BMs from studying the kinetics of phase transitions in live cells. FaBriCATion is to substantially investigate in-vivo Brillouin microscopy, pushing the acquisition time to a sub-millisecond scale per spectrum while maintaining the high spectral resolution, therefore permitting the measurements of the dynamic changes in mechanical properties of the living cells and tissues in sub-cellular resolution. It will enable direct observations of biomolecular phase transitions and reveal their relationship with the pathological effects in cells. The project will advance the research in understanding biomolecular PTs, thus bringing economic and societal benefits.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA · GenovaКоординаторИталия