The Translational Cancer Faster Forward postdoctoral programme – CanFaster-ER

Project Information

CanFaster-Postdoc

Grant agreement ID: 847583

DOI

10.3030/847583

Project closed

EC signature date 8 October 2019

Start date 1 May 2020

End date 30 November 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 2 206 800,00

EU contribution

€ 1 103 400,00

Coordinated by

LUNDS UNIVERSITET
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CanFaster-Postdoc (The Translational Cancer Faster Forward postdoctoral programme – CanFaster-ER)

Reporting period: 2022-05-01 to 2025-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

CanFaster is a joint venture among industry, health care and academia to enhance and accelerate innovations and clinical implementation within oncology. The vision of CanFaster is to prolong and save lives of cancer patients through integrated development and commercialization/implementation of diagnostic/treatment alternatives, thus reaching the market and patient more rapidly. CanFaster will save lives of cancer patients, not only for future generations, but already for today´s.

The CanFaster programme is enabled by an intimate collaboration between industry, health care system and academia. The collected efforts of all partners result in effective translational cancer research where entrepreneurial spirit, state-of-the-art medical care and world-class scientific excellence play the key role. In total 14 postdocs are hosted within CREATE Health, a cancer research programme at Lund University with 15 years of broad international collaboration experience as well as many successful spin-off companies reaching the market. The regional postdoctoral programme complements the original CanFaster doctoral programme where 16 ESRs were recruited and finished their thesis during the lasting of the postdoctoral programme. Tight collaboration between postdoctoral researchers and PhD students had positive synergy effect and led to innovative solutions in the cancer field as well as inspirational and vivid work environment.

The main objectives of the CanFaster programme are (i) increased international and intersectoral mobility, (ii) intensified collaboration within oncology between different sectors including academia, industry and health care, (iii) acceleration of innovation, attracting international investors leading to increased number of SMEs in the region and (iv) education of a new generation of excellent multidisciplinary, entrepreneurial scientists. This is achieved through the attraction of the MSCA program for industrial partners to add-on to the EU and public national funding of the programme with financial and in-kind contribution.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During six calls, 14 established researchers were hired in four key cancer related areas with high impact on cancer translational research to enrich Lund University research environment. The offered intersectoral, interdisciplinary, and entrepreneurship education of the group increased their intersectoral mobility and four of the ERs persuaded a career in industry at the end of the position. The postdocs attended 130 conferences and participated in over 50 workshops. Throughout the dissemination efforts, more than 150 000 people were reached by the CanFaster-Postdoc programme.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Beyond 14 successful carrier stories, 13 scientific articles were published within the CanFaster-Postdoc programme, including high impact journals like Science and Nature Communications. Five additional publications were submitted, other four are in preparation. One patent was registered and a spin-off company based on the patent was created. Postdocs themselves attracted over one million SEK in research and travel grants. PIs in relation to the project attracted over 100 million SEK in research grants, including very prestigious EIC Pathfinder grant, EIC Transition grant, CancerFonden grant and SciLifeLab Drug discovery and development platform grant. The participation of postdocs in Kulturnatten and other scientific events for the general public helped to educate and inform people about the cancer research performed at Lund University.

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