ABOUT THE PROJECT
X-PAND is a four-year international multi-centric project funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe – European Innovation Council program. The ambitious goal of the project is to exploit innovative hematopoietic stem cell manipulation protocols in combination with a deep multiomics profiling to bring novel, efficient and safer hematopoietic stem cell gene therapies to clinical application.
THE CURATIVE POTENTIAL
OF HEMATOPOIETIC STEM CELLS
Hematopoietic stem cells are able to generate all blood lineages while retaining a high self-renewal potential. They represent an effective tool for cell and gene therapy approaches for the treatment of different pathologies, including genetic diseases directly affecting hematopoiesis and immunity, systemic disorders and cancer.
NEEDS OF THE FIELD
A consistent bottleneck of the gene therapy field lies in the development of protocols for ex vivo hematopoietic stem cell expansion and effective genetic manipulation that do not compromise their stemness. The unpredictable effects of cell manipulation are made even more challenging by the elusiveness of hematopoietic stem cells that can be detected only retrospectively. Unveiling their genetic and biological identity of these cells would lead to a technological breakthrough in their manipulation in culture with extraordinary improvements for their therapeutic exploitation.
X-PAND SOLUTION
X-PAND consortium brings together a multidisciplinary team of scientists with a wide expertise in gene transfer and in vitro stem cell gene editing, stem cell characterization and expansion technologies, multiomic data analysis and clinical translation in the field of monogenic diseases and cancer. This integrated view will enable the “big leap” in correcting defective genes and delivering new therapeutic functions to haematopoietic stem cells effectively and safely thus leading to improved clinical applications.
X-PAND DETAILS
Full project title: Exploiting ex vivo expansion and deep multiomics profiling to bring novel, efficient and safer hematopoietic stem cell gene therapies to clinical application.
Grant Agreement number: 101070950
CORDIS reference: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101070950
Horizon Europe Call: HORIZON-EIC-2021-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01
Topic: HORIZON-EIC-2021-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-03 – Emerging Technologies in Cell and Gene therapy
EU contribution: 3.800.000 euro
Duration: 1st October 2022 to 30th September 2026
Number of partners: 6
Third parties: 1
Project Coordinator: Luigi Naldini
Project Coordinator: Ospedale San Raffalele SRL