PATTERN EXPERT | Projects
The following pages provide an insight into some of the projects PATTERN EXPERT is currently working on or was involved with in the past. Please browse the tabs below for further information:
EU - FP 6: NORMOLIFE - Development of new therapeutic substances and strategies for treatment of pain in patients with advanced stages of cancer
- Funding period: 01.12.2006 - 30.11.2009
- Participant organisations: 11
- Project funding: 2.180.000 Euro
- EU-Project: CORDIS
The EU research project included the development of new analgesic drugs for the treatment of cancer patients in palliative care. 11 partners from 6 EU countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland and Hungary) were involved. The EU funded the project with about two million Euros for nearly 3 years.
The main objective of the project was to discover new drugs that would allow patients in an advanced stage of cancer to live pain free without any unpleasant side effects. Previously, mainly opiates and pain patches were used in practice, which inhibit pain, but often caused side effects. As a result patients that are already weakened suffer from breathing problems, sudden sweating, digestive complaints or fainting spells.
The project was based on the latest findings in neurobiological research: Receptor molecules which are responsible for transmitting the perception of pain from the affected organs via the spinal cord to the brain were found to be altered due to inflammation or tumours. The blockage of these altered pain receptors by a new class of "smart drugs" that specifically affect the modified receptors and suppress the transmission of pain signals to the brain on several levels at the same time, promised a better effect than the use of conventional medicines. The active substances were tested with a newly developed sensor system with multichannel recordings from multi-electrode arrays (neuro-chip technology): Networks of living neurons are cultivated on a silicon chip, which is provided with contact electrodes to measure the electric signals: Changes in the electrical communication within the network indicate the effect of drugs. Eventually the recorded data was analyzed using the Pattern Recognition algorithms of PATTERN EXPERT. This method provided important information about the actual effects of the tested substances since the results were even more significant than those obtained in animal experiments.
Within the research project PATTERN EXPERT was able to build on its experiences in Pattern Recognition and obtained valid classification results demonstrating the advanced capabilities of the developed technology framework with modules for the evaluation of drug screening. The results of this project have been published in several publications.
The project was led by the Medical Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.
Partners:
- Medical Research Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland (Coordination)
- Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Catania, Italy
- Department of Natural Sciences, Free University of Brussels, Belgium
- Department of Chemistry, Warsaw University, Poland
- Biological Research Centre, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary
- Institute of Biology, National Centre of Scientific Research "Demokritos", Greece
- Institute of Organic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
- Industrial Chemistry Research Institute, Poland
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rostock, Germany
- PATTERN EXPERT, Germany
- Steinbeis-Forschungs- und Entwicklungszentrum GmbH, Germany