28 cancer bodies join forces in €12M cross-border research project

Europe’s leading cancer organisations are combining forces in the EurocanPlatform, a €12 million project that aims to streamline cross border research and develop more effective ways to ensure prevention, early discovery and treatment of cancer.

The organisation, funded under Framework Programme 7, meets for the first time today (20 January) in Stockholm. The project will last for five years, establishing a collaborative structure within the EU for cancer research. Ulrik Ringborg from the Karolinska Institutet, who is coordinating the project, comments, “In a way, you could say that this initiative represents a paradigm shift in cancer research.”

He added, “An important part of the project involves getting the right therapy to the right patient at the right time. But before we can get there, we need to do a great deal of research since the range of possible tumours and therapies is vast. No one research centre can have the resources needed. We must make sure that we coordinate and exploit the resources we have to the full.”

EurocanPlatform brings Europe’s 28 most research-intensive institutions in the field of cancer, of which the majority are clinical, with the remainder being engaged in basic research. The collaboration will allow individual research groups and organisations to conduct studies they would not otherwise have the resources for, with the costs of equipment, tumour samples and competence shared.