The ImmUniverse project will bring AD and UC clinical management to a new level through novel, tested and clinic-ready circulating biomarker assays which are expected (a) to improve diagnosis, (b) to inform early in the clinical course on disease severity and progression and (c) to enable treatment response/remission monitoring. Moreover, implementing disruptive non-invasive liquid-biopsy methodologies will provide significant advances; dOFM has the potential to provide a high resolution signature of the intersitual fluid allowing correlation between tissue and blood and support the identification of robust circulating signatures in AD, while LIPUS has the potential to induce tissue-specific cellular and molecular components into the blood allowing the enhancement of circulating signatures, thereby replacing intestinal biospies. This is particularly relevant for UC as currently, biopsy and endoscopic assessment of mucosal healing are the gold standard for the evaluation and diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) progression. Although well tolerated, both endoscopy and biopsies are invasive, thus limiting their use and frequency, and they do not reflect disease dynamics or sensitivity to treatment. Traditional biopsy is limited by the quality and amount of the tissue that can be sampled. Similarly, frequency of biopsy sampling in dermatology is a limiting factor. Therefore, there is a high clinical need for robust signatures of the disease tissue microenvironment from blood and/or non-invasive detection methods that could monitor the real-time dynamics of AD and UC. Liquid biopsy represents an alternative and attractive non-invasive procedure. Therefore, If successful, Immuniverse will significantly enhance our understanding of both diseases, providing tissue-specific biomarker signatures that will transform diagnosis, disease prognosis, and therapy response. These advancements will be crucial for patients, clinicians, and health authorities, offering profound implications for personalized treatment and improved healthcare outcomes.
