Category: Funding

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Funding

KIC-KT grant for oligonucleotide analysis to Pirok and Gargano

KIC-KT grant for oligonucleotide analysis to CAST scientists Pirok and Gargano
KIC-KT grant for oligonucleotide analysis to CAST scientists Pirok and Gargano

In a joint effort, CASA scientists Govert Somsen and Anouk Rijs (VU Amsterdam), and Bob Pirok and Andrea Gargano (UvA) have been awarded funding for their project Innovative Analytics for Therapeutic Oligonucleotide Research (InnovATOR) from the Dutch Research Council NWO. In a consortium with AstraZeneca, Novartis, GSK, MS Vision and Tosoh, they will advance and combine novel analytical methods to make a next step in unravelling the molecular composition of oligonucleotide pharmaceuticals. The project was recently granted within the Key Technologies (KT) program of the Knowledge and Innovation Covenant (KIC), which is aimed at solving societal challenges. The total project budget is 1.2 M€ of which 360 k€ is provided by the participating companies.

KIC-KT grant for oligonucleotide analysis to CASA scientists Pirok and Gargano

Oligonucleotide-based drugs offer promise as revolutionary therapies for hitherto untreatable diseases. However, by their synthetic nature and inherent instability, these therapeutics are chemically very complex. To understand their function and activity, and guarantee quality and patient safety, full characterization of oligonucleotide drugs is essential. The consortium of academic and industrial researchers will develop new analytical strategies by combining cutting-edge multidimensional separations with advanced mass spectrometric techniques and smart optimization and data algorithms. Three PhD students will be appointed within the consortium; they will perform their research at the VU and UvA laboratories, and be seconded for several time periods to company labs to focus on implementing newly developed methods in industry. The project aims to deliver key analytical technologies that will ultimately safeguard drug efficacy and patients’ wellbeing.

Read the press release by the Dutch Science Council here.

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Funding

COAST TAFU-XL grant for Andrea Gargano

Trypsin digestive enzyme molecule (human). Enzyme that contributes to the digestion of proteins in the digestive system. 3D rendering based on protein data bank entry 1trn. Ball-and-stick model, black background.

CAST researcher Dr. Andrea Gargano has been awarded a 50,000 euro TAFU-XL grant from the Community of Innovation for Comprehensive Analytical Science and Technology (COAST). Together with Pieter van Delft of the company Corbion, he will further develop the novel concept of polymer sequencing by enzymatic hydrolysis.

When developing biodegradable co-polymers for applications such as drug delivery systems, but also when designing new plastic materials that are more easily recyclable, it is crucial to relate their properties (e.g. tensile characteristics and degradability) to their composition and molecular structure. However, current state-of-the-art methods for polymer analysis provide only limited information about the chemical composition and molecular weight distribution of the polymers. 

Enzymes

In a novel approach, researchers Dr Andrea Gargano (Analytical Chemistry) and Prof. Francesco Mutti (Biocatalysis) at the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS) have called enzymes to the rescue. Together with industrial partners (DSM, Covestro and InnoSyn), they have developed novel cutinase enzymes that selectively depolymerize polyester (co)polymers. Since the resulting oligomers are less complex and more soluble, they open a path for more detailed analysis of the original polymer strands. The researchers have dubbed their method POLY-SEQU-ENCHY which is an acronym for polymer sequencing by enzymatic hydrolysis.

In the Talent Fund (TAFU) XL project of COAST, the HIMS researchers will now team up with Corbion to elucidate the structure of the polyester-based poly lactic-co-glycolic acid copolymers by means of POLY-SEQU-ENCY. This will then be related to the use of these polymers for applications such as drug-delivery systems. The grant of 50,000 euros is intended to establish the ‘proof-of principle’ that will support subsequent public-private-partnership (PPP) grant applications.

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Funding

VENI Grant for Bob Pirok

UPSTAIRS

CAST member Bob Pirok of the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences at the University of Amsterdam was awarded VENI grant in the TTW domain of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). With his grant, Pirok aims to improve the applicability of modern separation technology to enhance its relevance to society.

The Veni grants are part of the Talent Scheme of NWO and are aimed at excellent researchers who have recently obtained their doctorate. The grants of up to € 280,000 confirm the quality and innovative nature of their research and help to further establish themselves in their field over a three-year period.

The UPSTAIRS project aims to develop technology to reduce the resources required to use powerful separation systems.

The UPSTAIRS project aims to resolve this problem by developing algorithms that allow the automated development of methods using state-of-the-art instrumentation for the complex samples of this era. In UPSTAIRS, innovative peak-tracking algorithms will be developed that yield the capability of automated workflows to interpret the data. By utilizing these data for the construction of fundamental retention models for each analyte in the mixture, the algorithm can simulate numerous potential methods, regardless of the sample complexity. Novel equations will be designed for combinations of chemical method parameters. Candidate methods will be selected using novel chromatographic response functions based on Bayesian statistics and submitted for (automatic) validation by the instrument.

By Unleashing the Potential of Separation Technology for Achieving Innovation in Research and Society, UPSTAIRS will solve pressing problems and allow us to better understand materials, art, pharmaceuticals, environment, and other matrices.

Bob Pirok

Ultimately, the algorithms will enable a control computer to directly interact with the analytical instrumentation and interpret the resulting methods to then propose and evaluate a better method. According to Pirok, ‘a computer can do all this much more effectively than a human being, so that it takes far less time to develop an optimal method. This will bring the full potential of modern separation technology to society.’

Knowledge utilization is a strong focus of this project and will be achieved through a diverse and strong user committee and a demonstration of this workflow on a highly complex sample in the final work package. Moreover, a protocol will be published along with the developed open-access toolbox to allow analysts to use this work.