Bridging the gap between Mind, Brain and Body: exosome role and monitoring

Acronym

MindGAP

Description of the granted funding

MindGAP presents a radical new vision that may BRIDGE the GAP between HEALTH status and MIND/BODY interactions and lead to a paradigm shift in medicine. The disruptive idea presented herein is sustained by relevant data presented in the literature: (i) exosomes circulate throughout the body as messengers of health and disease, transporting genetic data to be delivered into a recipient cell; (ii) and exosomes are implicated in brain activity, having the ability to cross the blood brain barrier. Thus, when exosomes circulate and exit the brain to peripheral cells, there is a message transported therein, which is related to its cargo inside the vesicle. Overall, we aim to know which cargo is related to health and which cargo is related to disease. Traditionally, everyone has been looking for disease indicators to detect disease. Herein, we look for sensitive health indicators that may change under disease installation, therefore yielding an unprecedented early disease detection possibility. Moreover, the possibility of using MINDFULNESS meditation as a mind-related tool to control the cargo of exosomes is explored herein. If meditation is successful in changing the behaviour and attitudes of many people, fighting depression, etc., it means that the exosomes cargo may be changed through this process. Thus, this could be a major route to a self-healing approach before disease begins. Finally, all this knowledge opens doors to an innovative device that may be used by everyone to understand his/her health status. Overall, MindGAP targets (i) the missing relation between the genetic data in EXOSOMES and health status; (ii) interfacing this link with MIND-related activities; (iii) and to create an INNOVATIVE and PORTABLE DEVICE that TRACKS EXOSOMES and ANALYSIS their relevant genetic data, thereby allowing each individual to correlate this information with their own HEALTH STATUS and the installation of a pro-active attitude of each one of us against disease.
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Starting year

2019

End year

2024

Granted funding

866 656.25 €
Participant
UNIVERSIDADE DE COIMBRA (PT)
1 105 191.66 €
Coordinator
LINNEUNIVERSITETET (SE)
789 375 €
Participant
INSTITUTO PORTUGUES DE ONCOLOGIA DO PORTO FRANCISCO GENTIL, EPE (PT)
793 525 €
Participant

Amount granted

4 435 830 €

Funder

European Union

Funding instrument

Research and Innovation action

Framework programme

Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

Call

Programme part
EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) (5216)
FET Open (5217)
Topic
FET-Open Challenging Current Thinking (FETOPEN-01-2018-2019-2020)
Call ID
H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2019-2020-01

Other information

Funding decision number

829040

Identified topics

brain, neuroscience