The ambition of the project is to provide a firm platform for the identification of effective NP targets and indicators and for drug screening, to bridge the gap between research and its application in the discovery of effective drugs. For this purpose, the NGN-PET project will be organised in six work packages (WPs) that have been defined taking into consideration the tasks to be developed and the need for coordination both within the specific WP and between the other WPs.
WP1 will provide scientific coordination and professional project management capacity to resolve trade-offs between scope, time, cost and quality in order to ensure adequate progress and successful completion of the Project.
The main aim of WP2 will be the study of neuro-immune interactions in the context of two neuropathic pain models.
The primary aim of WP3 is to develop and optimise assays using co-cultured primary cells that reflect the glial-neuronal signaling pathways. The results garnered from this WP will feed into WP5 and WP6.
WP4 will focus on the identification of biomarkers relevant to analysis of neuron-glia cross-talk.
The aim of WP5 is to develop assays with neurons and glia produced by differentiating hiPSCs. These assays will reflect the perturbation of glial-neuronal signalling in clinical neuropathic states. The most promising assay(s) will be taken forward in WP6 for the development of HCS/HTS assays.
Finally, the main objective of WP6 is to develop the tools generated in WP5 towards industrial application for drug discovery; specifically, the tools will be adapted and validated for automated miniaturised HTS and HCS platforms.