National research programme Cell identities and destinies (PEPR Cell-ID)

PEPR Cell-ID explores how cell fate choices contribute to the normal development of an organism and how their aberrations can lead to a pathological situation. The aim is to identify early cellular and molecular signatures to detect the onset of disease: a prerequisite for interception cellular medicine.

PEPR Cell-ID explores how cell fate choices contribute to the normal development of an organism and how their aberrations can lead to a pathological situation. This is a prerequisite for considering interception cellular medicine, which aims to detect the early warning signals of a disease before its pathological manifestations in order to correct aberrations in cellular trajectories. Recent biotechnological advances down to the level of the single cell offer tremendous potential for understanding when and how a cell deviates from its physiological destiny. This understanding is crucial for identifying aberrant pathological trajectories in order to correct their deleterious effects.

At the end of 2020, in a roadmap submitted to the European Commission, France, via the major European LifeTime project, highlighted the importance of technological breakthroughs and interdisciplinarity for interception cell medicine. PEPR Cell-ID now aims to kick-start this drive towards interception-based cellular medicine in France. To this end, Cell-ID has chosen to explore neural development and paediatric brain cancers. These diseases, which appear in childhood and are thought to be caused by deviations in cellular trajectories, have a high cost and a major impact on society, affecting the quality of life of children and their families. Thanks to the combined strengths of the CNRS, Inserm, institutions such as the Institut Curie, universities, hospitals and industry, Cell-ID brings together a group of experts (over 50 laboratories) in a multidisciplinary project (biology, physics, computer science, mathematics, chemistry, medicine).

Four actions are proposed:

• Developing omics technologies coupled with imaging to monitor the functioning of the genome over time at the molecular level in each cell of a tissue.
• Developing experimental models to intervene in cellular trajectories during neural development using molecular tools
• Integrate biological data to build predictive models of cell trajectories
• Apply this approach to the syndromes studied