On April 7–8, 2025, the PLASTCELL consortium held its third in-person meeting in Barcelona to review progress and discuss next steps as the project moves into its final phase.
Participants from the UK, France, Austria, and Spain traveled to Barcelona by plane, train, bus — and even on foot across borders — to take part in rich discussions on the scientific and strategic evolution of the project. The meeting featured presentations from multiple work packages, highlighting key developments in cell culture and confinement technologies, image analysis pipelines, advanced microscopy approaches, and the PLASTCELL scoring system.
Ethical considerations were also discussed thanks to the valuable insights from the members of our Ethical Advisory Board: Dr. Maria Berdasco, Dr. Magali Jacquier, and Dr. Melanie Goisauf.
The consortium reaffirmed its strong commitment to collaboration and scientific innovation, with a focus on continuing to advance cutting-edge technologies and stepping up dissemination and exploitation efforts for PLAST_CELL diverse biomedical and research applications in the field of cell plasticity and cancer.
On 2–3 April 2025, the PLAST_CELL project participated in the EIC Summit 2025, held in Brussels. As the flagship event of the European Innovation Council, the summit brought together innovators, researchers, policymakers, and entrepreneurs from across Europe.
The two-day event offered a rich programme of workshops, pitching sessions, and panel discussions addressing key topics shaping the future of European innovation. For PLAST_CELL, some of the most relevant sessions included:
Importance of IP for Building a Deep Tech Business, where the EPO and EUIPO highlighted the value of establishing an early IP strategy and diversifying intellectual property rights (IPR).
Navigating Regulatory Pathways for Emerging Health Technologies, which provided a comprehensive overview of current regulatory frameworks and the EMA’s support for innovation.
BAS Services, which shared a broader reflection on how to leverage the full spectrum of EIC services and view the EIC not just as a funder, but as a strategic partner.
The event also offered excellent networking opportunities with investors, biotech companies, National Contact Points, and Project Officers. PLAST_CELL was represented by Sara Abad, Project Manager from the CRG.
In addition, on 1 April, the project was also represented at the EIC Community Training on AI tools for innovators—an interactive session exploring practical AI applications to support research, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
We are grateful for the opportunity to take part in these events and look forward to applying the knowledge and connections gained to further strengthen the PLAST_CELL initiative.
During the week of 21st-25th October 2024, Alberto Zurita (CRG) joined Harry Dawson (CHB) in Paris for a hands-on collaboration at Cherry Biotech. Together, the two PLAST_CELL team members worked on refining and testing a custom tool designed to culture cells under controlled physicochemical conditions that mimic aspects of the tumor microenvironment.
The productive week yielded valuable insights, which were shared and discussed during our latest PLAST_CELL online monthly meeting. These developments mark significant progress as we near the end of 2024, propelling the PLAST_CELL platform closer to its goal: enabling the prediction of cancer cell aggressiveness at the single-cell level.
Stay tuned as we continue to push the boundaries of cancer research and innovation!
On 15-17th October 2024, Cherry Biotech participated in the Festival of Biologics in Basel, Switzerland, Europe’s largest biologics event. Cherry Biotech presented the PLAST_CELL project and their latest innovative CubiX prototype, designed to confine cells and precisely control environmental conditions. This novel tool, combined with the data currently generated by the PLAST_CELL consortium, will enable to quantify phenotypic changes in cancer cells, shedding light on cancer cell plasticity and aggressiveness.
At the event, Cherry Biotech had the chance to connect with top-tier biologists and researchers from leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies, discussing the future of preclinical trials and personalized medicine. The primary focus: how CubiX can enhance efficacy and enable the change from animal models to 3D cell culture.
On 17-18th October 2023, we held the Second Annual Meeting of PLAST_CELL at the PRBB in Barcelona. It was a hands-on meeting, where participants went to visit the labs of Verena Ruprecht and Toni Celià-Terrassa and even with a demonstration of the microfluidics device from Cherry Biotech!
We also welcomed our newly established Ethics Advisory Board (EAB), who will provide their advise during the active phase of the project on topics such as animal experiments, use of patient samples and the use of AI in decision-making. The EAB-members are:
– Dr. Maria Berdasco (Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC) – Can Ruti)
– Dr. Magali Jacquier (Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
– Dr. Melanie Goisauf (BBMRI-ERIC)
Verena concluded the meeting by confirming that we have successfully built a strong collaborative team in PLAST_CELL!
We celebrate the one-year anniversary of an ongoing research project funded by the European Innovation Council which aims to quantify a cancer cell’s ability to respond to environmental stress that threatens its survival, a key indicator of tumour progression and aggressiveness.
Highly metastatic mouse cancer cells under mechanical confinement. Credit: Chiara Cannatá, IMIM & Fabio Pezzano, CRG
In response to changing environments that threaten their survival, cancer cells have an extraordinary ability to change their behaviour, shape and function. This trait, a key indicator of tumour progression and aggressiveness also known as cell plasticity, allows cancer cells to adapt to stress and keep growing.
Cell plasticity is fundamental for cancer’s ability to cheat death. For example, cells can switch to using old and damaged parts to keep functioning or activate cellular programs that freeze them in a state of senescence. Cells can also detach from a primary tumour and invade other tissues, contributing to metastasis, even with the body normally inducing cells to self-destruct in the absence of proper cell-to-cell interactions.
Despite playing a central role in cancer progression, there is no universal consensus on the definition of cell plasticity. Being able to quantify the impact of these mechanisms would be a huge boon for cancer research and treatment, paving the way for new tools that predict how aggressive a tumour is and at the same time, boost the development of more effective and personalized cancer therapies.
“When cancer cells attempt to relocate to a new part of the body to metastasise, they have to overcome a series of challenges. It’s like a decathlon at cellular scale, but instead of swimming, running or jumping, cancer cells have to physically squeeze through spaces, adapt to different chemical and physical environments or interact with new types of cells when changing locations in the body. If we could quantify the cellular ‘fitness’ in these events like in a scoring system used in sports, we could predict tumour aggressiveness and metastatic potential” says ICREA Research Professor Verena Ruprecht, researcher at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona.
An international consortium led by Dr. Ruprecht aims to tackle this longstanding challenge by developing a new technology platform which can quantitatively assess tumour plasticity at the single cell level. Dubbed PLAST_CELL, the technology will mimic the physiological stresses that naturally occur in the human body and provide quantitative readouts on a cell’s shape, proliferation and survival and molecular features associated to its capacity to adapt to different environments.
“We will create a high-resolution live-imaging microscope which will be connected to a device that can mimic the stress that cancer cells face when proliferating and colonizing different organs, including the mechanical ‘squeezing’ of cells in dense tissues or during migration” explains Dr. Ruprecht. “With this information, we can study cancer cells with known low or high metastatic potential. The images result in the creation of datasets that will feed AI tools and ultimately help predict the metastatic potential of cancer samples from patients.”
The live-imaging microscope will be used to set quantitative standards to identify genetic, molecular, and biophysical mechanisms underlying cancer cell plasticity and tumour aggressiveness. The consortium believes the platform will give rise to ‘Plastomics’, an entirely new field in biology which can provide a new perspective in cancer analysis, diagnosis and – in the future – treatments. The researchers anticipate that pharmaceutical drug discoveries targeting metastatic potential and resistances will emerge based on PLAST_CELL within a ten-year period. The platform also aims to be adopted in the clinic as a new and powerful diagnostic tool to assess tumour aggressiveness.
The PLAST_CELL team
The project is coordinated by ICREA Research Professor Verena Ruprecht, Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation, and funded with 3 million euros from the European Innovation Council, a new body introduced by the European Commission to support the commercialization of high-risk, high-impact technologies in the European Union.
Dr. Ruprecht’s team’s expertise is in cell and tissue dynamics and the interrelation between micro-environmental factors and cell function. Her lab combines the study of cellular morphodynamics in the live embryo with biomimetic in vitro assays to identify control mechanisms of single and collective cellular behaviour, essential for the development of the platform for the assessment of cell plasticity.
Dr. Antoni Celià-Terrassa (IMIM) is an expert in cancer metastasis, cancer stem cells and tumour immunology. He pioneered studies on cellular plasticity during metastasis, bridging basic and translational research with innovation towards the clinic in collaboration with industry. He will work with a multidisciplinary team of biologists, oncologists and pathologists at Hospital del Mar, and critically contribute to the characterization of metastatic cells and tumour aggressiveness.
Dr. Pablo Loza Alvarez and Dr. Jordi Andilla (ICFO) are experts in advanced bioimaging using Super Resolution microscopy, structured illumination microscopy (SIM) and single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) to understand molecular mechanisms of cell migration and polarization. Their lab develops sophisticated data analysis tools and will be responsible for the quantitative live cell imaging and super-resolution microscopy.
Dr. Virginie Uhlmann (EMBL-EBI) has interdisciplinary expertise in applied mathematics, image processing, and computer science. She develops automated microscopy image quantification algorithms blending mathematical models and machine learning, with a focus on computational morphometry, an essential expertise for the development of a predictive model of tumour aggressiveness based on cell plasticity.
The consortium is complemented by Dr. Jeremy Cramer and Dr. Antoni Homs-Corbera at the French SME Cherry Biotech (CHB), leading a team of engineers, physicists and biologists, with a strong R&D background, focusing on developing a biomedical technology (Organ on Chip) for drug discovery and precision medicine. Its mission is to replace animal testing by reconstructing human tissue (Organoids) in vitro for drug testing. Cherry Biotech’s platforms enable pharmaceutical, biotech companies and healthcare providers to recreate immunocompetent human vascularized organ models and tumor microenvironments for better evaluation of their drug candidates inside a standard multiwell plate (Organ on Well).
This project has received funding from the European Union’s HORIZON-EIC-2021-PATHFINDEROPEN programme under grant agreement No 101046620.
After six months of mostly online interactions, the whole PLAST_CELL consortium met on November 3, 2022, for the first time in person in Barcelona. The objective of this gathering was to foster active cooperation among the partners, share ongoing work and outline the plan for the upcoming months as well as the actions that need to be implemented for a smooth and fruitful progression of the project.
The consortium met at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park, home to CRG and IMIM, for a full day of scientific presentations and discussion. Exciting preliminary results were presented together with the challenges identified during the first period for each of the six work packages in which the project is organized. Moreover, transversal aspects were discussed, such as the plans for the dissemination and exploitation of the innovation potential associated with the project and for data management.
This kick-off meeting was very productive and the atmosphere was positive and collaborative. All partners had already been advancing in their respective responsibilities and had new data and interesting discussion topics to share with the consortium. All tasks are currently progressing and the collaboration among partners is functional and smooth. The gathering ended with a conversation on where the next consortium get-together will be, hopefully welcoming lots of new team members that will be hired in the upcoming months… Will it be Paris or Cambridge?! We look forward to meeting again soon!
On 5 th May 2022, we held a virtual Kick-off Meeting of our project that is funded by a European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder Grant. The interdisciplinary consortium is formed by 5 partners: CRG, ICFO, IMIM, EMBL-EBI and Cherry Biotech. Together, we will pioneer the development of a microfluidics- based imaging platform to study cancer cell plasticity for a new era of basic research and personalized medicine.
After a general round of introductions, the participants focused on Research Data Management, since a lot of microscopy image data will be generated and analyzed. Other actions were agreed upon, such as scheduling weekly online meetings and working out the structure of the PLAST_CELL website. The virtual Kick-off meeting left everyone wanting to meet in person soon. We are excited about the challenge of making this 4-year project a reality!
