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INNOVATION
High resolution microscopy and characterization of single cell malignancy potential
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Market Creation Potential
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Women-led innovation
A woman had a leadership role in developing this innovation in at least one of the Key Innovator organisations listed below.
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UN Sustainable Development Goals(SDG)
This innovation contributes to the following SDG(s)
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 9
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

The UN explains: "Investments in infrastructure – transport, irrigation, energy and information and communication technology – are crucial to achieving sustainable development and empowering communities in many countries. It has long been recognized that growth in productivity and incomes, and improvements in health and education outcomes require investment in infrastructure."

The EU-funded Research Project
This innovation was developed under the Horizon Europe project PLAST_CELL with an end date of 30/04/2026
  • Read more about this project on CORDIS
Description of Project PLAST_CELL
Metastasis is the major cause of death in cancer patients due to cancer cell dissemination to distant organs. Cell plasticity is a core characteristic of metastatic cells and confers cellular adaptation capabilities to variable mechano-chemical tissue microenvironments. However, to date, specific quantitative measures of cancer cell plasticity associated with tumour aggressiveness and therapy resistance have remained difficult to establish. A major limitation is the availability of highthroughput multiplexed assays that can capture phenotypic heterogeneity and morphodynamic plasticity at the single cell level in standardized 3D culture conditions reflecting in vivo tissue microenvironments. The PLAST_CELL interdisciplinary consortium will pioneer the development of a microfluidics-based imaging platform to categorize and score cancer cell plasticity within diverse physiologically relevant 3D biomimetic culture conditions. The platform will enable to perform single cell multi-scale morphometric and molecular live cell data collection (PLAST_DATA) with minimal sample size (<10k cells). Data will be generated based on single molecule-sensitivity marker detection and cellular/subcellular morphodynamic feature recognition via minimal-invasive long-term super-resolution microscopy and parallel morphodynamic imaging of cellular behaviour. Computational integration of PLAST_DATA using preclinical models and patient samples will enable to develop a quantitative classification of tumour cell plasticity and predictive scoring of cancer aggressiveness, metastasis and drug resistance (PLAST_SCORE). The ability to assess cell plasticity based on cellular behaviours is beyond current clinical parameters and will strongly impact diagnosis, prognosis and treatments. The PLAST_CELL platform will be a technology breakthrough to establish new quantitative standards to evaluate cell plasticity and mechanisms of tumour malignancy for a new era of basic research and personalized medicine.

Innnovation Radar's analysis of this innovation is based on data collected on 12/12/2024.
The unique id of this innovation in the European Commission's IT systems is: 114780