image: Dr. Mariona Graupera (left) and Dr. Anna Bigas (right), researchers at the Josep Carreras Institute
Credit: Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute
The ERC Synergy Grant scheme is part of the EU's research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe aimed at answering scientific questions larger than a single researcher can hold. Therefore, the funding helps groups of outstanding researchers to pool different skills, knowledge and resources to push the frontiers of our knowledge and transform old conceptions into new frameworks. Successful projects will receive funding for 6 years.
BEMOSAIC, a fresh view on endothelial composition
Current paradigm sees the endothelium as a sheet of similar cells lining the innermost layer of blood vessels. However, single cell transcriptomic analysis shows great cellular heterogeneity instead. BEMOSAIC, the ERC Synergy grant coordinated by Dr. Mariona Graupera at the Josep Carreras Institute, will go a step beyond and try to prove that the endothelium is way more than that. As partners in this journey, BEMOSAIC will count with the expertise of Dr. Karina Yaniv, from the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Dr. Valentina Greco, from Yale University.
The hypothesis of BEMOSAIC is that the endothelium is actually a mosaic of different cell types developing specialised functions, each with its own behaviour, to optimise vascular function. To test this hypothesis, the project will integrate the synergistic expertise of the partners in live imaging, sophisticated genetic approaches, and spatial omics, to map the endothelial cell’s behaviours in zebrafish and mice.
To understand how this complex behavioural mosaic works in health and disease, researchers will perturb the system by expressing mutations leading to vascular malformations in humans and observe how the tissue reacts. The results of BEMOSAIC will provide a better understanding of vascular-related pathologies and may lay the foundation for improving vascular therapies by targeting specific endothelial cell subsets.
Regarding the project, Dr. Graupera recalls that “working on the proposal with the team has been really fulfilling at the personal level” and defines it as “it is not describing what a particular subset of cells can do, but what they actually do”.
BEMOSAIC is one of the few ERC Synergy Grants lead by all-female principal investigators, a situation we hope to find normalised in the coming editions of the programme.
MakingBlood, an ambitious project to “make” blood stem cells
All blood cells are produced from stem cells in the bone marrow in a process called haematopoiesis. These stem cells are produced during embryo development and mature in different embryo localisations: the aorta vessel, the embryo liver and, finally, the bone marrow, where they stay during adultness.
MakingBlood is the ERC Synergy Grant coordinated by Dr. Anna Bigas from the IMIM Institute, with the Josep Carreras Institute as partner. Together with the Brunel University London, the Stichting Sanquin Bloedvoorziening, the ABO Akademi and the Technical University Eindhoven, the team will develop a biological platform able to recreate these environments and produce fully functional haematopoietic stem cells. If successful, the platform could create cells for transplantation, not only in leukaemia patients but also for anaemia or genetic diseases, in the future.
Dr. Bigas stated that “this is an ambitious and risky project” in which they will “try to understand the whole stem cell maturation process first, and then simulate them to recreate fully functional cells in the lab”. According to Bigas, the final objective of the project is very clear: “to produce stem cells able to be used in the clinic for transplantation or other applications”.
The Josep Carreras Institute is proud to have two of our researchers leading Synergy Grants, the topmost projects funded by the ERC. We are confident that both BEMOSAIC and MakingBlood will make a difference in the future for the benefit of vascular malformations and blood cancer patients. Today, as always, together we are unstoppable.