Living magnetobots for targeted theranostics to tackle metastatic solid tumours

MagBIO (“Living magnetobots for targeted theranostics to tackle metastatic solid tumours”) is an interdisciplinary, international and intersectoral collaborative effort to develop living “magnetobots” technology that utilises the mechanism of personnel exchanges between 18 partners located in Europe and the USA to address socioeconomic and healthcare challenges. Through carefully planned and integrated secondments, MagBIO will use knowledge transfer to train 34 ESRs (early-stage) and 33 ERs (experienced researchers) to be future leaders in academia and industry. The major problem that we shall tackle focuses on combining targeted therapies and diagnostic imaging (theranostic) technologies to identify and treat solid tumours of common cancers in Europe (pancreatic, breast, lung, colorectal), embracing sustainability and safety aspects from early-stage MedTech development. MagBIO is conceived to design, test, and disseminate sustainable ground-breaking theranostic technology into a single platform inspired by microorganisms that naturally sense magnetic fields and thrive in hypoxic environments such as cancer tumours. To this end, magnetotactic bacteria will be engineered for targeted delivery of payloads, addressing unmet needs to tackle metastatic solid tumours. The key to achieving this lies in the interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial nature of the consortium to develop the next generation of sustainable and personalised medicines to improve the quality of life of people in the EU and beyond, whilst contributing to a sustainable medicines biomanufacturing industry.