The FRINGE proposal has been evaluated positively and will therefore receive funding under the research and innovation action, FET-Open Challenging Current Thinking, under grant agreement number 828922.
FRINGE – Fluorescence and Reactive oxygen Intermediates by Neutron Generated electronic Excitation as a foundation for radically new cancer therapies
The vision of FRINGE is to lay the scientific foundation for a ground-breaking new cancer treatment, which can cure deep-lying and difficult-to-operate cancers non-invasively and with great specificity to the cancerous lesions. This is done through a concerted action of conventionally non-interacting disciplines – synthetic chemistry, photochemistry, photobiology, photomedicine, computational chemistry, neutron physics and nuclear medicine.
We envision a curative technology which will be non-invasively applicable to these difficult-to-cure tumours and have the ability of being fine-tuned to specifically cure malignancies without significantly affecting the surrounding healthy tissue. In FRINGE, we propose the use of a neutron beam which can readily penetrate deep into tissue and interact with organometallic photo-toxins (photosensitiser, PS), previously administered and allowed to accumulate in diseased tissue.