

Title
DNABEATS: Customized DNA-based nanocarriers to boost heart healing.
Description
Myocardial infarction and its evolution towards heart failure is a leading cause of death in Europe. No curative treatment aside heart transplantation has been accomplished so far. DNABEATS aims to bring advanced materials to regenerate injured myocardium. Cutting-edge DNA nanotechnology is exploited for the fabrication of fully customized biocompatible DNA-based nanocarriers (DNCs) to achieve the cardio-targeted and efficient delivery of a regenerative microRNA.
The therapeutic efficacy of DNCs will be evaluated in human-derived cardiac cells, a ground-breaking aspect, that together with an exhaustive in vitro and in vivo biocompatibility investigation, will facilitate their future clinical application and industrial transfer. DNABEATS entails thus benefits for multiple stakeholders from industry to patients and clinicians. Sustainability is also present in the project and different dissemination and exploitation actions are planned to maximize the socio-economic impacts.
Objectives and Results
DNABEATS proposes innovative nanocarriers customized to cardio-direct the delivery of heart regenerative miR molecules using an approach with high translational value. Four objectives have been set to achieve the general scientific goal:
● Developing multifunctional DNCs loaded with cardio-therapeutic miRs.
● Characterizing DNCs stability under biological conditions.
● Demonstrating DNCs selectivity and therapeutic efficacy.
● Assessing DNCs biocompatibility in vitro and in animal models.
IP IIS Aragon
Laura Ordovas
Financing Agency
Financial subsidy awarded within the international competitive calls for “International Collaboration Projects (PCI)” of the State Research Agency (AEI 2021 – 2023) to the project “CUSTOMISED DNA-BASED NANOCARRIERS TO BOOST HEART HEALING” (PCI2023-143438), belonging to the consortium project “Customised DNA-based nanocarriers to boost heart healing – DNABeats” of the International Joint Action M-ERA.NET 3 cofund 2022.
The PCI2023-143438 project is funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union.
Total Project Budget: €866.862
IIS Aragón Budget: €123.420
Coordinator
University of Zaragoza (Spain)
Be a partner
- University of Tartu (Estonia)
- Aragón Health Research Institute Foundation (Spain)
- Vilnius University (Lithuania)
- Jagiellonian University (Poland)
Duration
01/09/2023 – 31/08/2026 (36 months)