FWO infrastructure grants to boost cancer research, including 2,2 million euro for a new GMP facility!
In 2023, FWO launched a call for large and middle-scale research infrastructure, defined as 'all facilities and sources that promote the performance of cross-border and strategic basic research across all scientific disciplines'.
We are thrilled to announce that the jury decided to grant 2.2 M EUR to build a novel facility for Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) at the Ghent University Hospital (UZ Gent) to replace the present facility, which has become too limited in capacity, and which in the coming years will not be up to current best practices and regulations. Prof. Bart Vandekerckhove (GE32), strongly supported by business developer Dr Tim Desmet and his team submitted the grant in order to secure extra funding for the infrastructure, the required equipment as well as the project management of the new facility.
The FWO jury motivated their decision as follows:
The application presents a well-thought plan for building a novel Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) facility for Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) for early clinical trials at the Ghent University Hospital as a replacement for the current, out-dated facility. The promotor, the current manager of the GMP-facility, and co-promotors demonstrate very good track-records in translational research. It is a timely proposal and is built on existing expertise with substantial cofunding by the Hospital. It recognizes the growing and future needs of Europe (and Belgium) in terms of medical product innovation and provides a solution in an already existing dynamic and strong biotech hub. Academic investigator led investigational Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (iATMP) is critical to future therapies to compliment commercially led innovations by offering higher gain approach and many more innovations than otherwise could be fulfilled by industry alone. It represents an important strategic investment for Flanders. The proposal contains a convincing overview of research projects and themes for which the requested facility will be critical.
CellGENTherapies currently produces several iATMPs for early phase clinical trials for lung cancer patients and transplant patients with a hematological malignancy.
Of note, several other CRIG research teams applied for (and received) FWO medium-scale infrastructure grants (an overview of the medium-scale results can be found via this link):
Prof. Ruslan Dmitriev: 'Upgrade of confocal FLIM microscope with two-photon excitation and detection modules'
Prof. Jo Vandesompele: 'Photolithographic DNA printer for massively parallel synthesis of DNA oligonucleotides for spatial - omics and hybrid capture target enrichment applications'
Prof. Charlotte Scott: FullPicture: Combining Spectral Flow Cytometry with High-Speed Cell Imaging
to enable comprehensive profiling of plant and animal cells and their components in real time'Prof. Filip Van Nieuwerburgh: Democratizing High-Throughput Next Generation Sequencing across different Life Science Fields: the AVITI Next Generation Sequencer
Needless to say that this top-notch infrastructure will further boost cancer research in Ghent!