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In short
The Europe’s beating cancer plan (EBCP) is set out to tackle the entire disease pathway of cancer -from prevention to quality of life of cancer patients and survivors — with the aim to improve prevention, early detection, access to diagnosis and treatment.
The CAN.HEAL consortium will address two of the EBCP’s initiatives: ‘Cancer Diagnostic and Treatment for All’ and ‘Genomics for Public Health’. Genomics has become increasingly relevant in cancer medicine. Next-generation sequencing technologies and analytical approaches are now being introduced into the clinic with a multitude of clinical applications, ranging from identifying individual targetable genetic alterations to monitoring treatment response. Within the CAN.HEAL consortium organisations from 17 EU countries will jointly build on ongoing study to promote the application of genomics to improve diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients as well as to improve our understanding of the individual susceptibility to develop a certain type of cancer.
The final goal of the project is to establish recommendations for initiatives into the EU health system that will further improve the access of individuals and patients to prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through personalised medicine.
Project summary
The CAN.HEAL project will build on distinct use cases towards developing an integrated approach to improve access of individuals and cancer patients and survivors to prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through personalised medicine.
The project has two main arms:
- “Genomics for Public Health”, consisting in:
- developing a framework for aligning and integrating the genome of Europe biobanking
- providing polygenic risk score analysis/recommendations for decision support tools and strategies for the implementation of telegenetics and remote genetic counselling
- building clinical utility for cancers in pregnancy, family-based genetic testing in pediatric leukemia, cancer risk stratification
- “Cancer diagnostics and treatment for all”, consisting in developing strategies for:
- wet lab tools
- comprehensive genomic profiling
- data interpretation
- data integration
- decision support (MTB and tools) for early detection
- diagnosis
- and treatment.
The CAN.HEAL project also aims at:
- implementing NGS-based and liquid biopsy assays in clinical practice
- defining key legal and ethical requirements for cancer genomics
- developing training tools
- developing recommendations for the implementation of personalised approaches in the healthcare system
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project investigators.