Two million Euro to study diagnostic methods in cancer for the individualization of treatment strategies.

The Foundation Council and the Board of Trustees of the Bavarian Research foundation decided on April 1, 2019to support the Bavarian research alliance “FORTiTher – Tumor diagnostics for individualized therapy “with a funding of somet 2 million Euro.

The association aims to apply novel technical developments from biological investigation oftissues and singular cells as well as from bioinformatics to improve characterization of individual cancer diseases. Highly differentiated analyses of hereditary properties of tumor cells, their protein composition and the messenger substances they release, provide a profound amount of data for each single tumor, which will be merged into expedient profiles using software and out of which in their entirety, a systems biology of cancer activity can be designed.

The diagnostic systems allow for a prediction of the inclination of the tumor, to spread into other organs , enable an improved diagnosis with state-of-the-art imaging and analyze the abilities of a tumor to escape the natural defenses of our immune system. These highly sensitive tests can be carried out using urine and blood samples and in future are to be implemented quickly, automated and cost-efficiently into routine diagnostics.. Hence, custom-made, patient-specific treatment strategies can be developed.

In the past, scientists of the interdisciplinary consortium FORTiTher already contributed to this progress with a large variety of preliminary work and within this research association, in cooperation with partners from industry, they willl combine technologies from various fields of research in order to build the basis for a prompt transference of these high-tech test systems into medical care.

Source: Forschungsstiftung jetzt 01/19