About HORUS
HORUS is a European research project funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe Research and Innovation programme, under the grant agreement no. 101057651.
HORUS involves 24 partners in 7 European countries (France, Spain, Czech Republic, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and Italy).
Solid organ transplantation (SOT) is the treatment of choice for end-stage organ failure, but the immunosuppressive drugs used to prevent graft rejection expose to an increased risk of new symptoms or the development of post-transplant disorders such as opportunistic infections. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most frequent infectious complication following solid organ transplantation. CMV is responsible for infections that usually go unnoticed, even though it remains latent in the body for life when present.
The aim of HORUS study is to build the first longitudinal cohort of European SOT recipients to investigate viral, clinical and immunological characteristics of the host-virus interactions in the transplant setting in 450 solid organ transplants (heart, lung kidney and liver). Combining those parameters in the first 100 patients of the cohort will provide:
- a signature early after transplantation to predict the risk of developing CMV infection
- a signature at day 0 of infection to predict the risk of CMV disease severity
Found signatures will be validated on the whole retrospective cohort and prospectively in a “proof-of-concept"" study.
Moreover, HORUS will include functional in vitro and mouse models to investigate the mechanisms of lymphocyte response to CMV and provide innovative methods to increase CMV-specific immunity.
The goal is to determine which patients are the most at risk to develop CMV infections, based on their immune response. HORUS will lead to personalized clinical prevention and treatment of CMV disease and to improvement of patient outcomes.
Project Title
Casting light on HOst-cytomegaloviRUs interaction in Solid organ transplantation
Duration
November 2022 - October 2027
Website
https://www.horus-project.eu/