Greetings from Cancer Core Europe 2023 Annual Meeting

After two virtual annual meetings and one cancellation, it was finally time to meet IRL again in February for Cancer Core Europe https://cancercoreeurope.eu/. Cambridge hosted the 2023’s annual meeting where Karolinska institutet and Karolinska University Hospital were well represented. It was clear that all participants had looked forward to face-to-face discussions after the covid period and the energy was high. The intense program covered CCE’s ongoing activities in the three pillars: Clinical trials and translational cancer research, Virtual Data Centre (VDC), and Education and training (E&T).

After the welcoming by Professor Richard Gilbertson, Cambridge, biomarker and the DART project https://cce-dart.com/ was introduced. The DART project aims to incorporate newer and more effective methods to the design, conduct, and analysis of academic clinical trials, and is run in close collaboration with CCE’s Basket of Basket trial https://basketofbaskets.eu/ . CCE’s work towards a One Stop Shop, where ELFI Taskforce (Ethical, Legal, and Financial TF) has been slimming the contract processes for clinical trials were covered. Interest was high when meeting attendees were served the latest news by KI’s Janne Lehtiö and his colleagues from Institute Gustave Roussy in Paris, and the German Cancer Research Center/DKFZ in Heidelberg, about the VDC developments, where CCE is liaising with the Paris Saclay Cancer Cluster. CCE’s future sustainability rely on regrowth and the experiences of the TRYTRAC https://cancercoreeurope.eu/trytrac/  - CCE’s internal training program for the next generation leaders - were delivered by participants in the program.

Adding to the numerous talks, several breakout sessions were run e.g. the start up of a Phase 1 early trials work group, Rare tumours, and EU calls to discuss funding of the many exciting CCE activities, to mention some. When CCE President Emile Voest, NKI, summarized the two days it was clear that the meeting was a success and the attendees could have continued many of the discussions!

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Text by: Christina von Gertten (christina.von.gertten@ki.se)