CONCO

The implementation work plan for the full duration of the project is divided into 10 workpackages (WP). WP1 will supervise and coordinate all WPs. WP1 is dedicated to Consortium administrative, scientific and technical management. The tremendous biodiversity that provide marine organisms such as cone snails in terms of active bio-ingredients produced by their highly sophisticated venom-gland cells will be studied by WP2. Genomic and transcriptomic studies will be carried out by WP3, while WP4 will be in charge of generating proteomic data and preparing a natural library of venom fractions of the selected cone snail species. The results obtained with these transversal approaches will lead to the preparation by WP5 of a synthetic library of essentially all the compounds identified and structurally characterised in the natural extracts.

The natural and synthetic libraries will both be submitted to a wide range of bioassays in European laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art medically relevant screening facilities to identify new hits of interest to human health ( WP6 ). Compounds of interest, including from the beginning of the project one already identified promising compound XEP-018 (patent pending), will be submitted to optimisation through structure-activity studies ( WP7 ) and subsequently driven through pre-clinical and early phase-I studies by WP8. WP9 will be in charge of the integration of the whole data generated in the frame of the project in a publicly available multidisciplinary database with integrated data- and text-mining tools. Finally WP10 will ensure the protection, communication, education, and valorisation aspects of the project.


- Picture by T. Parel -