Cancer Center Amsterdam is embracing a fresh start of the New Year by announcing strategic multi-year investments to propel three promising research and care initiatives starting in 2021:
- Purchase and implementation of Gallium-68 generators at the Tracer Center Amsterdam,
- Initiation of an integrated cancer immunotherapy center,
- Expansion of the CCA Liquid Biopsy Center.
In addition to these scientific initiatives, Cancer Center Amsterdam is investing to stimulate new business developments at the Innovation Exchange Amsterdam Alliance Office Cancer Center Amsterdam.
Gallium-68 generators to advance medical imaging
Tracer Center Amsterdam, part of the Amsterdam UMC Imaging Center, has an essential role in the development of new tracer molecules in medical imaging for cancer investigation, diagnosis and targeted therapy. The application of radioactive gallium (68Ga) greatly facilitates the (pre)clinical development of novel tracers. However, the equipment and infrastructure to generate 68Ga are currently not available at Cancer Center Amsterdam. This investment budget will enable an initiative by Ronald Boellaard and Bert Windhorst to purchase 68Ga generators and establish good medical practice procedures to implement new tracer molecules for improved imaging and diagnosis of specific lung tumors, pancreatic cancer and other malignancies. Additionally, preclinical studies focusing on immune cell tracking in vivo can now be realized to develop more effective therapies against cancer.
Launch of the Amsterdam ImmunoTherapy Center
Immunotherapy against cancer is rapidly becoming part of standard clinical practice thanks to recent breakthroughs in understanding the pivotal role of the immune system in tumorigenesis. Despite encouraging successes against some tumor types, many questions remain, including why some treated patients show no benefit at all. New discoveries are needed to better understand how tumors suppress the immune system, and to identify predictive biomarkers and explore new combination therapies. With this investment grant, Cancer Center Amsterdam underscores the importance of this unique initiative by a consortium of principal investigators, with state-of-the-art expertise in the field of immunotherapy, to launch the Amsterdam ImmunoTherapy Center (AITC). A central coordinator will be appointed who will serve as a mediator between clinicians and translational researchers to foster networking and collaborations, guided by a board of scientific advisors from Cancer Center Amsterdam and Amsterdam Institute for Infection & Immunity. The central coordinator will also foster relations with (international) consortia, funding organizations, companies and patient organizations to advance translational research in immunotherapy. In the near future, AITC aims to become an internationally leading immunotherapy center committed to providing the best possible care for cancer patients.
Stimulus for CCA Liquid Biopsy Center
The analysis of tumor material in body fluids like blood and urine offers great potential to improve cancer diagnostics and personalized therapies. In particular, liquid biopsies from individuals before cancer onset or during early-stage malignancies, along with control samples from healthy people, can yield a wealth of information for early detection of cancer. However, these samples are not easily available at Amsterdam UMC as our expertise is more focused on complex, advanced tumor stages. The Cancer Center Amsterdam investment budget will fast-forward a proposal by Michiel Pegtel, Maarten Bijlsma and Geert Kazemier to further expand the CCA Liquid Biopsy Center (LBC) with samples from patients at regional community hospitals. Moreover, investments will be made to improve the structure and organization of the LBC to establish a fully sustainable and operational biobank for the next 10 to 15 years, with regional and national partners to support translational cancer research.
Expanding the Innovation Exchange Amsterdam alliance office at Cancer Center Amsterdam
Translational cancer research is one of the pillars of Cancer Center Amsterdam. However, to realize bench-to-bedside developments, start-up of new companies or involvement of partners in industry is often an essential step. The valorization of research findings requires specialized expertise in business development, management and legal consulting. In support of our principal investigators and to promote valorization, funds have been allocated to expand the Innovation Exchange Amsterdam Alliance Office at CCA (IXA-OA-CCA). The newly structured IXA-AO-CCA will feature two senior business developers, a dedicated legal practitioner, and a chief scientific officer. It will also form one of the pillars of an umbrella industry alliance office for the new Amsterdam Oncology and Neuroscience Research (ADORE) initiative. Based on previous collaborations with industry, the expansion of IXA-AO-CCA is expected to be self-sufficient after one year from income generated by business agreements. Projected additional revenues will be applied towards new cancer research activities.