DIOPTRA
DIOPTRA

Title: Early dynamics screening for colorectal cancer via novel protein biomarkers reflecting biological initiation mechanisms
Programme: Horizon Europe
Call: Develop new methods and technologies for cancer screening and early detection
Topic ID: HORIZON-MISS-2021-CANCER-02-01
Grant agreement No: 101096649
Brief description
DIOPTRA inspires to address the aforementioned issues by incorporating new technologies for Colorectal Cancer (CRC) risk assessment, screening and progression, while providing robust evidence-based indications of Cancers of Unknown Primary (CUP) relationships to CRC. We aim to build a stro g evidence base toward a unified holistic protocol for primary CRC screening, applicable both to undiagnosed cancer patients (via scheduled screening recommendations) and CUP patients corresponding to the CRC phenotype. Toward this goal, we will incorporate lifestyle and environmental factors and gauge the predictive power of investigated biomarkers and gene-expression profiling, seeking to unveil molecular mechanisms of CRC development and CUP incidence. In this context, we will also examine the efficacy of network modeling and AI-based DSS for early primary CRC identification, training a set of models on large volumes of primary CRC data including in-situ and metastatic carcinomas, using the latter as a knowledge base for CUP analysis.
Our role
We will develop a dedicated decision system for early CRC screening based on AI models that distinguish and propose a small subset of proteins on the basis of a cost-effective screening protocol, also incorporating risk factors.