Project: Epigenomic and machine learning models to predict pancreatic cancer: development of a new algorithm to integrate clinical, omics, DNA methylation biomarkers and environmental data for early detection of pancreatic cancer in high-risk individuals.
| Acronym | IMAGene (Reference Number: ERAPERMED2021-071) |
| Duration | 01/04/2022 - 01/04/2025 |
| Project Topic | Pancreatic cancer (PC) has the lowest survival rate of all cancers in Europe, with no early detection strategies available. The IMAGene project will develop, implement and test a comprehensive Cancer Risk prediction Algorithm (CRPA) to predict PC in high-risk (HR) asymptomatic subjects; it will investigate the potential for use of DNA methylation biomarkers to improve the already available risk indexes, and validate the feasibility of the use of liquid biopsies for early detection of cancer in such HR individuals. A sample of 200 healthy first-degree relatives of PC patients will be recruited, they will receive medical and psychological visits, in interviews we will record epidemiological factors related to PC risk, and they will undergo screening for germline mutations, DNA methylation profiling plus WholeBody-MRI at baseline. Biostatistical analysis of data will be performed to develop algorithms able to extract risk profiles from biological and imaging data. All the subjects will undergo epigenetic follow up plus radiological exam at 1 year after baseline. Participants’ lifestyle, epidemiological and psycho-decisional assessment will be performed through a monitoring process over the 3 years of the project. HR subjects’ lifestyle data will be correlated with DNA methylation profiles. All data collected will feed the supervised machine learning CRPA. Assuming the risk assessment through CRPA and DNA methylation profiling will allow a two or three-fold enrichment in early detection of suspicious cancer in HR individuals (compared to the detection rate of pancreatic cysts with malignant potential observed in non-stratified asymptomatic population, 6.3%), we expect a detection rate of suspected lesions of about 20% in the selected population. A cost-utility and a detailed ethical analysis will be conducted. The IMAGene project will adopt a transnational, multi-level, multidisciplinary and multi-methodological approach to achieve its primary and secondary aims. |
| Network | ERA PerMed |
| Call | 4th Joint Transnational Call for Proposals (2021) |
Project partner
| Number | Name | Role | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Istituto Europeo di Oncologia | Coordinator | Italy |
| 2 | Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse | Partner | France |
| 3 | Institut d’Investigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge (IDIBELL) | Partner | Spain |
| 4 | Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin | Partner | Poland |
| 5 | The Oncology Institute Prof Dr Ion Chiricuta Cluj-Napoca | Partner | Romania |
| 6 | Lund Universitet | Partner | Sweden |