CARAT Network

The CARAT consortium consists of eight partners located in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. The partners comprise 2 academic institutions, 1 regulatory body, 2 university hospitals, 2 SMEs and 1 large industrial partner. 

The CARAT approach is based on the integration of innovative tools and technologies from leading European players towards a new technology platform that will finally enable Europe to gain the lead in CAR T-cell therapies. To reach this aim, the participating groups have been chosen for their complementary scientific excellence, technical expertise, experience in translational research, and for their managerial skills. Our partners are scientists of the highest standing in the disciplines of gene-delivery, immunology and cellular immunotherapy in Europe, and are internationally recognised for their outstanding achievements.

Ensuring effective working together

  • As a whole, the high degree of complementarity and trans-disciplinarity among the participants ensures that our objectives will be met and that their combined output will be greater than the sum of its single parts.
  • The project coordination will be mainly the task of Miltenyi that contributes a dedicated team to CARAT with considerable experience in grant management. Their scientific expertise concentrates on cell separation solutions, automated cell manufacture devices, cell therapy and translation. Regarding administration, the coordinator will be flanked by a professional service provider company, EURICE, with a long experience in EU research project engineering and management. OSR is an academic expert for innovative T-cell design, pre-clinics and cell manufacture while PEI is adept at novel gene-delivery technologies, viral vector design and regulatory issues. INSERM brings in their expertise in advanced mapping technologies (slice assay) and immunobiology. UCL contributes know-how with regard to cutting-edge CAR design and adoptive immunotherapy whereas UKL-FR contributes novel non-viral gene-delivery technologies (designer nucleases). Last but not least, TrakCel is specialized in unique logistic solutions for control and tracking of cell manufacture processes.
  • All PI are heading established research groups, all of which are large and multidisciplinary, involving excellent clinicians, scientists and technicians working with state-of-the-art instrumentation and facilities.