The Centre for Integrative Biology - CIBIO of the University of Trento represents Italy in a Europe wide challenge to identify new, tailored and efficient therapies to treat patients with metastatic uveal melanoma, a rare and serious type of eye cancer.
"This disease is very difficult to diagnose in the first phase, and often becomes metastatic, therefore it is almost impossible to cure" says Marina Mione, head of CIBIO's Laboratory of Experimental Cancer Biology in Trento.
Her research unit is one of the partners of UM Cure 2020, a European project whose purpose is to identify new therapies to treat uveal melanoma. The project, which started in May and will end in 2020, has received 6 million funding in total (304,000 euro will go to the research team in Trento) from the European Union framework programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020. The UM Cure 2020 consortium – coordinated by Institut Curie in Paris – brings together the efforts of four European referral centres, three research institutions, two biotechnology companies, one foundation and one patient advocacy network.
“Unfortunately - continues Mione - there is no treatment for uveal melanoma once patients have developed metastases, which often are already there when they are diagnosed. UM Cure 2020 will focus on identifying the genetic drivers of the metastatic process, addressing signalling pathway deregulation, developing targeted treatments and testing them in clinical models. When the treatments will be approved for human use, they will be tested on patients”.
What is the role of the research team in Trento? “The task of CIBIO - explains Mione - is to create highly predictive models to study the evolution of the tumour”. The University of Trento might become a leading institution in the field.
“We are relying on the methodologies used in genetics, molecular biology and pharmacology - says Mione. The generated models will be used in preclinical drug screening, in combination therapies and to test their toxicity. One of the objectives on UM Cure 2020 is to initiate trials on patients in the four referral centres from 2018. The treatments used in the trials will be identified based on their efficacy in the models, included those generated by the University of Trento”.
About Uveal Melanoma
Uveal Melanoma (UM) is a rare intraocular disease with an incidence of five cases per million individuals per year. While the primary tumour can often be treated effectively, there is currently no effective treatment for its metastases. Very little is known about the metastases of UM due to the rarity of this disease and the limited access to metastatic tissue. Many UM patients are included in clinical trials designed for skin melanoma despite the fact that the latter and UM are very different in terms of molecular and clinical features.
The UM Cure 2020 Consortium
The UM Cure 2020 Consortium is made up by twelve partners (with EU funding under the heading 667787) coordinated by Institut Curie in Paris. The three other referral centres involved are the University of Liverpool (UK), Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC, Leiden, The Netherlands) and Uniwersytet Jagiellonski (Krakow, Poland).
There are also three academic research institutions: the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute (UK), the Centre for Integrative Biology of the University of Trento (Italy), and the Universiteit Leiden.
Two small biotech companies are part of the team: PEP-Therapy (Paris, France) and PamGene International B.V. ('S Hertogenbosh, The Netherlands). And finally, to complete the project there are the Champalimaud Foundation, the patient advocacy network Melanoma Patient Network Europe, and seeding science (SME from Paris, France).
For more information on the project and the consortium: http://www.umcure2020.org/en/