Cure 51, a French start-up, has raised 15 million euros for its project: identifying the reasons why certain patients survive particularly aggressive cancers.
- A French start-up, Cure51, wants to understand why certain people survive very aggressive cancers.
- It aims to create the world’s first clinical and molecular database dedicated to these survivors.
- Ultimately, the objective is to succeed in identifying a molecular signature, explaining the survival of these patients, in order to develop new treatments.
We are not all equal when it comes to cancer. Some people even defy science: “ exceptional survivors », those who survive aggressive cancers considered incurable. There are several tens of thousands of them around the world. These cases are of interest to a Paris-based start-up, Cure51. On Wednesday March 20, it announced that it had raised 15 million euros to carry out research on “miraculous from cancer”.
Incurable cancers: a future global database
“For unknown reasons, when these people are confronted with an illness, they take a completely different trajectory from others“, specifies Nicolas Wolikow, at theAFPrelayed by RFI. The CEO of the start-up is also founder of the teleconsultation company Qare. With Cure51, the project is to develop the first global clinical and molecular database of exceptional cancer survivors. The latter are those who have survived at least three years after being diagnosed with one of the most deadly cancers, namely glioblastoma, metastatic pancreatic cancer or small cell lung cancer. “These are very aggressive cancers for which no new treatments have been developed in the last 15 years.”underlines the general director.
According to THE World, the database will be populated through partnerships with more than 50 hospitals located in 36 countries. In total, medical data from more than 1,000 people who have survived aggressive cancer will be collected: medical images, blood test results, biopsies, responses to questionnaires on their lifestyle, etc.
How can we explain the survival of these “miraculous from cancer” ?
Once the data has been collected, it can be analyzed, particularly at the DNA level, and compared to that of other patients who have not survived cancer. To do this, the start-up will rely on algorithms and artificial intelligence. “The analysis of this molecular profiling, what we call multiomics data, will make it possible to discover the signatures, that is to say the expressions, of the genes which differ between these patients, and which explain why some survived.indicates Nicolas Wolokow at World. In the long term, the objective of the founders of the start-up is even greater: to develop treatments capable of reproducing the molecular characteristics of survivors in order to successfully treat these aggressive cancers. To achieve this, Cure51 wishes to publish its first analysis results within two to three years.
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