Projects

Europe still sees a quarter of the world's cancer cases each year, making cancer the second leading cause of death and illness in the region after cardiovascular diseases. Unless we take decisive action, lives lost to cancer in the EU are set to increase by more than 24% by 2035, making it the leading cause of death in the EU. Cross-border collaboration can address this challenge by combining data from various modalities and sources, extracting meaningful insights to deepen our understanding of cancer. However, ethical, legal, and national regulations, along with data access processes, including differing interpretations of the EU GDPR create significant hurdles. Technical interoperability issues across European cancer RIs, and patients' and citizens' rights to control who uses their personal information and for what purposes further complicate data sharing. The project will provide European researchers, SMEs, and innovators with a decentralized collaborative network, “UNCAN-CONNECT,” for cancer research. It consists of both technical components, a governance, compliance, and operational framework based on the UNCAN blueprint, with the goal of operationalizing it. The objective is to facilitate access to cancer data, promote open science, and revolutionize cancer research and treatment by co-creating an open-source federation of federations platform. It will be developed using specific use cases focused on six major cancer types: Paediatric, Lymphoid malignancies, Pancreatic cancer, Ovarian, Lung, and Prostate cancers and active collaboration with a diverse range of stakeholders,including researchers, SMEs, industrial end users, and citizens. It will build on existing European RIs such as BBMRI as well as initiatives like EOSC4CANCER, CanSERV, EUCAIM, to enable seamless storage, access, sharing, and processing of data across Member States and associated countries. This approach will foster interoperability and collaboration, accelerating progress in cancer research. This action is part of the Cancer Mission clusters of projects 'Understanding' established in 2022.

The research project investigated the effect of different strains of human pathogen Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) on liver cells. The results of the project demonstrate that pathogenic strains of H. pylori induce the formation of invasive structures (invadosomes) in liver cells dedicated in degrading the surrounding environment. The assembly of rosette-shaped invadosomes is caused by CagA present in the genome of pathogenic H. pylori, resulting in the activation of inflammatory response in liver cells, changes the shape and migration ability of the cells as well as alters the contacts between liver cells. These changes subvert the normal liver cell functions and behaviour leading to liver damages. The results of this study are especially important as they clarify the distinct effect of different strains of H. pylori on liver cells. We are immensely proud to show for the first time the induction of invadosomes by bacterial protein (CagA). In addition, we have demonstrated the direct link between the inflammatory response and invasion of liver cells, knowledge that clarifies the mechanisms behind pathogen-induced liver damages. The results of our study are important for the scientific community as well as for the doctors and society. In Estonia, 70% of the adult population is infected by H. pylori and research shows high prevalence of pathogenic strains among circulating H. pylori. Therefore, it is well justified to carry out dedicated research on this bacterium and to know if, how and which H. pylori strains may affect the development of liver diseases. Our results will help the doctors to understand better the various aspects of H. pylori infection and support the personalized medicine. We are proud to have established an excellent H. pylori research team dedicated in training scientists with high knowledge about H. pylori and ability to work with this complicated pathogen.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a human pathogen colonizing the human gastric epithelium in about half of the world´s population leading to peptic ulcer disease, atrophic gastritis and gastric cancer. Pathogenic strains of H. pylori possess several virulence factors, like CagA and VacA, correlating with higher gastric virulence and severely altered signal transduction. Recent studies have demonstrated the effect of H. pylori on gastro-intestinal microbiota leading to the progression of many intestinal as well as extra-intestinal diseases. The main goal of our study is to understand the effect of H. pylori colonization on the composition of the gut microbiota and on the progression of liver diseases. Our study has three specific aims: 1) Characterize the association between gastric microbiome and H. pylori pathogenic status from gastric biopsies; 2) Determine the lower intestinal microbiome from stool samples of the endoscopy patients; 3) Analyze the association between H. pylori -altered gut microbiota and liver functions. Nine patients undergoing upper endoscopy examination in West Tallinn Central Hospital (Tallinn, Estonia) will be enrolled in the study. The proposal is designed as a pilot study and will be highly valuable cornerstone for further research involving bigger sample sizes.

The handling of SARS-CoV-2 needs to be carried out in BSL3 (Biosafety level 3) laboratories that is expensive and not always available. This has urged the need for solutions that would allow to work with SARS-CoV-2 material in lower biosafety level laboratories. Therefore a collaboration was established with virologists from Tartu University (Prof. Merits and Dr. Varjak). This project proposes two approaches to provide solutions for this important obstacle. First, we aim to develop a complementation system (trans-replicases) based on SARS-CoV-2. Second, we will create stable cell lines enabling packaging of viral replicase into virion-like particles. The new tools developed during this project will allow the studies assessing the effect of emerging mutations for virus replication. In addition, our systems will offer the possibilities to test neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 as well as other COVID-19 drug candidates. Therefore, the development of novel tools will support the tight collaboration with hospitals to study the effect of antibodies from patients.