e:Med scientists receive prestigious German Cancer Aid Award for groundbreaking lung cancer research
The prestigious German Cancer Aid Award 2023 is now granted to e:Med scientists Professor Dr. Roman Thomas, Professor Dr. Reinhard Büttner and Professor Dr. Jürgen Wolf, Cologne. The prize honors their outstanding work in the field of lung cancer diagnostics and therapy - in particular within the interdisciplinary "National Network Genomic Medicine (nNGM) - Lung Cancer", which they initiated. Their work enables patients with advanced lung cancer throughout Germany to receive personalized treatment tailored to their needs. They have founded this success with the e:Med networks SMOOSE and InCa.
With the SMOOSE network led by Professor Roman Thomas, University of Cologne, the BMBF funded the implementation of molecular diagnostics in the clinic and help for lung cancer patients at an early stage via the e:Med Systems Medicine initiative. The three award winners were already working together on the concept of bringing together interdisciplinary expertise for individualized treatment for the benefit of lung cancer patients. With the e:Med network InCa, led by Prof. Dr. Thomas and Prof. Dr. Julie George, University of Cologne, this work is being deepened through a systemic approach to the investigation of heterotypic interactions of lung cancer cells with their microenvironment. Comorbidities in a holistic view also offer unexpected ways for new strategies for a combined therapeutic approach to improve tumor control in lung cancer.
Press release of the Deutsche Krebshilfe:
The interdisciplinary 'National Network Genomic Medicine Lung Cancer' has developed into the world's largest lung cancer initiative since 2018. It emerged from the Cologne-based 'Genomic Medicine' network, which has been successfully campaigning for the implementation of personalised therapies in the care of patients with advanced lung cancer since 2010. German Cancer Aid has been funding the 'nNGM Lung Cancer' since 2018, enabling it to expand nationwide. The network currently comprises 28 centres - including all of the Comprehensive Cancer Centres funded by German Cancer Aid.
"Professor Dr Reinhard Büttner, Professor Dr Jürgen Wolf and Professor Dr Roman Thomas have decisively advanced molecular diagnostics and therapy for lung cancer with their excellent work and great commitment in the 'nNGM Lung Cancer'," said Anne-Sophie Mutter, President of German Cancer Aid, in honour of the award winners.
The aim of the 'nNGM Lung Cancer' is to use the findings and dynamics of personalised cancer medicine. The patients' tumours are analysed at a molecular level in order to identify changes that enable targeted therapy as an alternative to the chemotherapy that was previously used. Before the use of molecular diagnostics, only a microscopic examination of the tumour tissue taken from the patient determined which therapy was suitable for the patient - be it surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Today, molecular diagnostics, as carried out in the 'nNGM' centres, determine the type of treatment.
"The task of pathology is to analyse the tissue samples from the tumour and to extract and derive information from them. The results of the analysis are then used to develop an individualised treatment concept for the patient in collaboration with the other medical disciplines. Every tumour in which we find a treatable mutation receives personalised treatment," says Professor Dr Reinhard Büttner, Director of the Institute of General Pathology and Pathological Anatomy at the University Hospital of Cologne, current Congress President of the 36th German Cancer Congress (DKK) and member of the 'nNGM Lung Cancer' coordination team.
"Our motivation is to bring the enormous potential that genomic medicine offers for people with advanced cancer into the clinic in such a way that all patients in Germany can really benefit from it," says Professor Dr Jürgen Wolf, Medical Director of the Centre for Integrated Oncology (CIO) in Cologne and spokesperson for the national Genomic Medicine Network. Currently, around two thirds of patients with advanced lung cancer are reached, which is up to 17,000 patients a year, according to Professor Wolf. In the next two to three years, the scientists hope to be able to reach more or less all patients.
"After returning from my research stay in the USA, I was lucky enough to work with Jürgen Wolf and Reinhard Büttner in Cologne. Jürgen Wolf, Reinhard Büttner and I shared the vision of making the new findings from cancer genome research available to patients. So we set about realising it: Jürgen Wolf in the field of treatment and clinical studies, Reinhard Büttner in diagnostics and I in the laboratory - each in their own place, but wonderfully complementary. It fills me with great joy and gratitude to see what has come out of this," says Professor Dr Roman Thomas, Director of the Institute for Translational Genomics at the University of Cologne and co-founder of the 'NGM Lung Cancer' in Cologne.
"The very special thing is that these three award winners have not only succeeded in building a bridge from the discovery of genetic mutations, the exact molecular diagnosis, to an individual therapy tailored to the individual patient, but also in bringing this into clinical practice via a network and directly benefiting the affected patients with lung tumours," said Professor Dr Thomas Krieg, Professor Emeritus of Translational Matrix Biology and Vice President of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, in his laudatory speech for the award winners.
"By awarding the German Cancer Aid Prize to outstanding personalities from the field of oncology, German Cancer Aid wants to emphasise the great importance of cancer research in the fight against the disease," explains Gerd Nettekoven, Chairman of the Executive Board of German Cancer Aid. "In doing so, we are acting in the spirit of the physician Dr Wilhelm Hoffmann. He asked our organisation - with the legacy he bequeathed to us - to award an annual prize for outstanding achievements in oncology. We have been fulfilling this mission for 28 years."
Find out more about the 'nNGM - Lung Cancer' in the video:
youtu.be/cKqLI7q4_Gg
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