Objective
GENINCA will address two tumor entities, for which we have good access to pre-malignant lesions and in which genomic instability is a common feature: colorectal and liver cancer. Colorectal cancer amounts to 13.2% of all incident cases of cancer, the second most common form of cancer, surpassed only by lung cancer (13.3%). Liver cancer accounts for about 2% of total cancers, however, the most common liver cancer, i.e. hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is among the most lethal form of cancer, and its incidence in Europe has been steadily rising over the last few decades. GENINCA represents a collaborative study of 8 academic and 3 industrial partners from 5 European countries. GENINCA will focus on exploring pre-cancerous and cancer lesions of the two aforementioned tumor entities and their respective microenvironment. As the recent identification of human colon-cancer initiating cells by one of our academic consortium members paves the way for completely new strategies for studying mechanisms of tumorigenesis, a particular focus of this grant proposal will be the detailed characterization of these cancer initiating stem cells. At present, it is still a matter of debate which genomic changes are already present in precursor lesions and whether these lesions already show genetic instability. We will therefore address the occurrence of genomic instability and explore their underlying mechanisms especially in pre-cancerous and early cancer lesions. This will be greatly facilitated by in vivo endomicroscopy approaches, sophisticated animal models and large-scale genomic and proteomic analyses. Furthermore, we will include an in-depth analysis of the corresponding microenvironment. As this represents a translational research effort, we expect to identify markers for novel therapeutic and/or preventative strategies, as well as to facilitate tumor diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP7-HEALTH-2007-A
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CP-FP - Small or medium-scale focused research projectCoordinator
8036 Graz
Austria
Participants (13)
20139 Milano
00161 Roma
Participation ended
EC1V 4AD London
Participation ended
55122 Mainz
20251 Hamburg
75654 Paris
Participation ended
8010 Graz
30659 Hannover
1030 Wien
89081 Ulm
OX1 2JD Oxford
91054 Erlangen
1120 Wien