EU Projects

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the fifth most common tumor in the world and the third leading cause of death. In recent decades, the incidence of this tumor has been increasing both in the United States and in Europe. Cases of hepatocellular carcinoma are also increasing in Lithuania. Liver tumors are expected to increase further in the next two decades. Scientists estimate that 70 percent patients can be cured, so timely diagnosis is very important. Because of this, sensitive diagnostic systems that would help the doctor to diagnose the disease in time and evaluate the prognosis of the disease and prescribe the appropriate treatment are very relevant for the whole world. Currently, diagnostic tests for hepatocellular carcinoma used in the world are not sufficiently sensitive and do not have high specificity, so the disease is diagnosed in late stages.

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Vitro Medis in October 2020 signed a financing agreement with the Public Enterprise Lithuanian Business Support Agency regarding the financing of the project with EU support funds under measure no. 01.2.1-LVPA-K-856 "Experiment". Project title "Development of clinically relevant biomarkers in extracellular systems for monitoring the digestive tract".

 

During the project, it is planned to create two completely new products for the monitoring of the digestive tract - (1) a set of molecular markers, the differences in expression of which will have clinical significance in differentiating hepatocellular carcinoma of the digestive tract system from benign lesions, and (2) a molecular diagnostic kit that allows the detection of liver fibrosis. Clinically relevant markers were screened and selected during the research and experimental development activities implemented in the project.

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Project 13.1.1-LVPA-K-856-01-0063 is financed by the European Regional Development Fund, financed as a measure of the EU's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project successfully finished is October 2022. 

 

The project activities contribute to the 2014-2020 national progress program horizontal priority "Health for all" inter-institutional action plan goal 3 "to ensure high-quality, affordable and sustainable health care" task 3.2 "to improve the accessibility and quality of public health services" 3.2.7 measures "to implement innovative and methods, solutions and technologies based on modern scientific knowledge in the fields of health care, health preservation and strengthening".