MARVEL project has kicked-off!

On November 5^th – 6^th, 2020 MARVEL project was officially kicked-off via online conferencing service where all partners from 6 organizations participated. The project is coordinated by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) SCITEC-CNR, with the participation of ITM-CNR and other 5 European partners from different countries: Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (Italy), Cardiocentro Ticino Foundation (Switzerland), Paperdrop Diagnostics (Spain), HansaBioMed Life Sciences (Estonia) and Amires (Czech Republic).

MARVEL project, whose full name is “Evolving reversible iMmunocapture by membrane sensing peptides: towARds scalable extracellular VEsicLes isolation” – will develop new diagnostic and therapeutic tools using extracellular vesicles. This innovative technology can help to detect bladder cancer and provide therapeutic treatment of cardiovascular diseases, which are among the leading causes of deaths in the world nowadays.

Extracellular vesicles are membranous particles that are released from a cell. They are found in biological fluids such as blood and urine and they are involved in communication between cells. Extracellular vesicles act as signalling “vehicles” in both physiological and pathological mechanisms. These characteristics make them fundamental in the development of innovative methods in diagnostics, therapy, and industrial biomedical applications. Therefore, MARVEL’s goal is to upgrade the existing technology for reversible extracellular vesicles isolation and move beyond the analytical scale. This is crucial for the manufacturing scale production of extracellular vesicles and further their deployment in cardiac repair and non-invasive diagnosis of bladder cancer.