Almost 5 million euro 'Stichting tegen Kanker' funding for CRIG research!

CRIG

Every two year, 'Stichting tegen Kanker' launches a call for both fundamental as translational/clinical cancer research projects. This year, 23,8 million euro was divided over 63 innovative and promising research projects at universities and university hospitals throughout the country. With almost 3 million euro for fundamental research projects and more than 2 million euro funding for translational/clinical research, CRIG teams received a substantial portion of the available funding for the following projects:

Fundamental research:

  • Prof. Geert Berx: Defining the role of ZEB1 in tumour initiation and progression of basal-like breast cancer
  • Prof. Wim Declercq: Dissecting the role of RIPK4 in skin cancer
  • Prof. Katleen De Preter: Characterizing regulatory heterogeneity in high-risk neuroblastoma
  • Prof. Olivier De Wever: Impact of cancer-associated fibroblasts and their secretome on innate-adaptive immune cross-talk upon irradiation
  • Prof. Tom Taghon: Unraveling the role of GATA3 in BCP-ALL
  • Prof. Peter Vandenabeele: Improving cancer therapy by modulating cell death and the microbiome in the gut
  • Prof. Lars Vereecke: Studying the microbiota-immune-tumor axis in colorectal cancer using germfree and gnotobiotic mouse technology

Translational/clinical research:

  • Prof. Geert Berx: Preclinical validation of novel plastistatic therapy for malignant colon cancer
  • Prof. David Creytens (& Prof. Sophie Hernot, VUB): Peroperative ex vivo cancer margin detection using fluorescence labelled single-domain antibodies
  • Prof. Wilfried De Neve (& Prof. Dirk Van Gestel, ULB-Bordet & Prof. Vincent Remouchamps, CHU Namur-UCLouvain): Maximizing the ratio of radiotherapy survival benefit over radiation-related morbidity and mortality in patients requiring breast and regional lymph nodes treatment. A multicenter study using the prone crawl radiotherapy technique
  • Prof. Frank Speleman: Scrutinizing selective Aurora kinase A inhibition as a novel therapeutic strategy for neuroblastoma
  • Prof. Tom Taghon: Functional characterization and expansion of thymus seeding precursors in human
  • Prof. Bart Vandekerckhove: Improving Neo-epitope Identification in lung cancer patients using Mass spectrometry and Next generation sequencing (INI-M&N)

Asbestos-related research:

  • Prof. Veerle Surmont (& Prof. Jan Van Meerbeeck, UAntwerpen & Prof. Kristiaan Naeckaerts, KU Leuven): Mesobreath 5: assessing the clinical utility of a breath test for pleural mesothelioma

Congratulations to all teams & good luck with your projects!

Discover all funded projects here.