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Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Amsterdam UMC) has arisen from the merger of Amsterdam’s two academic hospitals, the Academic Medical Center (AMC) and the VU University Medical Center (VUmc) in 2018. Amsterdam UMC is a leading medical center that combines complex high-quality patient care, state-of-the-art scientific research and top-level education and training of the next generation of health care professionals.

The Amsterdam Vesicle Center is a collaboration between the Department of Biomedical Engineering & Physics and the Laboratory of Experimental Clinical Chemistry of the Amsterdam UMC. By combining biological, chemical, metrological and physical knowledge and expertise, we develop novel technologies to study the presence and biological function of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in health and disease, with the goal to use EVs as clinical biomarkers.

DUTH logo

DUTH facilities

DUTH team

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We are a hybrid in silico and wet lab translational biomedical research team focusing on:

Biomarker Discovery for Precision Medicine

Aim: to improve the quality of clinical decisions and accelerate medical research to bring solutions for people.

Scientific approach: We apply data- and biology-driven approaches to produce highly performing biosignatures specific for clinically significant disease end-points, in multiple diseases including cancer and diabetes. We employ innovative automated machine learning and text data mining bioinformatic tools to optimise and accelerate biomarker discovery. We also validate models in patient cohorts, focusing on liquid biopsies, to offer mature blood-based solutions readily available for minimally invasive diagnostics anticipated to disrupt clinical management. Novel data-driven drug targets are also identified.

The team is based at the Department of Medicine of the Democritus University of Thrace (med.duth.gr), in close proximity to the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis (pgna.gr), the major health provider of the prefecture of East Macedonia and Thrace (>600,000habitants) in Greece.

The PI Ekaterini Alexiou Chatzaki (PhD) is Professor in Pharmacology at DUTH and Director of the Institute of Agri-Health, Hellenic Mediterranean University Research Centre, Crete, Greece. She leads the team since 2002, with special interests in Epigenetic/Pharmacoepigenetics. The team currently consists of 5 post-docs and numerous PhD and post-graduate Biologists.

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The department of Medical Oncology is one of the departments of the Erasmus MC, the largest university medical center in the Netherlands with more than 14,000 employees. Within the Erasmus MC, the department is part of the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute in which all departments involved in cancer care, education and/or research work together. In addition to providing care to patients with solid malignancies and training of oncology students and residents, the department of medical oncology focuses strongly on clinical and translational research. Researchers from the department have had coordinating roles in studies impacting the world-wide clinical treatment standards in several tumor types including testicular cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, soft tissue sarcomas, and esophageal cancer. Apart from the more than 150 ongoing clinical studies, both pharma- and investigator-initiated, one of the research areas of interest of the department is the development and testing of minimally invasive techniques to capture the molecular characteristics of tumor cells important for treatment decision making. Studies have been done on the robustness of different technologies for liquid biopsies and numerous studies have been done to assess the clinical value of liquid biopsies including in total more than 3,500 patients.

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Lab-on-a-chip – from the initial idea to the final product. Hahn-Schickard stands for client- and industry-oriented, application-driven research, development, and production with microsystems. With a total of 250 employees at three sites in the Southwest of Germany, we develop innovative products and technologies in research fields with a strong future impact such as healthcare, internet of things, information and communication technologies, sustainable mobility, as well as environmental and natural resources. At the site in Freiburg, the R+D service provider focusses on automation solutions for diagnostics. Fields of research are the automation of Liquid Biopsy workflows and sample preparation for next generation sequencing. With an in-house pilot line, Hahn-Schickard is able to support the product visions of its customers effectively – from the design stage to serial production.

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The Regina Elena Institute (IRE) is one of the two twin Institutes forming Istituti Fisioterapici Ospitalieri (IFO). Founded in 1934, IRE is possibly the oldest Cancer Research Institute in Europe. It includes research laboratories, clinical research services and hospital assistance staffed with >1000 units of personnel. IRE is a member of the ‘Union International Contre le Cancer’ (U.I.C.C.), of the European Organization of Cancer Institutes (O.E.C.I.), of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (E.O.R.T.C. - Early ClinicaI Trial Group), and is referral center of the World Health Organization (WHO). Since 2015 IRE has been accredited as O.E.C.I. Comprehensive Cancer Center. IRE actively investigates mechanisms of neoplastic transformation and progression using transcriptomics, proteomics, molecular diagnosis, predictive oncology, and aims at developing targeted therapeutics. IRE features a fully certified BioBank (BB-IRE) for tissue and liquid biopsy. Since 2016 we perform Liquid Biopsy in the standard of care setting (EGFR, Lung cancer). The research laboratories are organized in a large 2500 square meter open space including central facilities. Pre-clinical and co-clinical (PDx) animal studies are ongoing, including a focus on liquid biopsy. IRE has participated and/or is currently involved in several H2020 EU project on liquid biopsy including ULTRAPLACAD (www.ultraplacad.eu), AiPBAND (www.aipband-itn.eu), and OncNGS (http://oncngs.eu).

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Approximately 2 hours by Japanese Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo, the Iwate Medical University Institute for Biomedical Sciences was established in 2011 as a part of the new Iwate Medical University Yahaba Campus. The Yahaba Campus holds three professional schools, the university hospital system, and the research institute, which is one of the most cutting-edge medical research institutions in northern Japan. The Division of Biomedical Research & Development was funded in 2016 at the institute and focuses on the clinical implementation of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) for cancer diagnosis under a tight association with the University Hospital.

Our ultimate goal is to establish a real-time, quantitative, and longitudinal monitoring system for post-treatment cancer patients using ctDNA. Digital PCR (dPCR) is considered to be one of the most suitable techniques for repeatedly quantifying ctDNA in an affordable manner. However, a dPCR assay requires an individually designed primer/probe set that is dependent on each somatic mutation of the patient. To circumvent that issue, we developed a pre-made dPCR primer/probe library that contains more than 1,000 target mutations. The patent rights for this dPCR primer/probe library have been transferred to an Iwate Medical University spinout venture, Quantdetect, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan). The dPCR primer/probe library is now used for post cancer-treatment surveillance, namely the OTS-Assay (OTS, off-the-shelf), at the Iwate Medical University Hospital.

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The Jessa Hospital is a regional reference hospital with 1000 beds and more than 3000 employees. It offers innovative and highly qualitative medicine and patient care in collaboration with several partnering hospitals. Next to the classical medical specialties the Jessa hospital also offers a number of highly specialized top clinical services that requires advanced equipment. The Laboratory for Molecular Diagnostics is amongst the 9 Belgian NGS networks and one of the first in Belgium to diagnostically implement NGS for the genomic profiling of cancer patients. Currently, we perform targeted small as well as comprehensive NGS gene panels for the somatic screening of solid and hematological tumors. The lab is leading the BALLETT study (NCT05058937) to assess the added clinical value of comprehensive genomic profiling in routine care, with discussion of the patient’s results in a national Molecular Tumor Board. The lab has broad expertise on liquid biopsy analysis as it performs NIPT for more than 7 years. Recently, NGS on cfDNA was also validated for the routine screening of somatic hotspot mutations, mainly in NSCLC and breast cancer patients. On short term we aim to significantly expand the gene panel allowing for broad screening of multiple aberrations and biomarkers.

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The Center for Human Genetics (CME) at the University of Leuven, conducts cutting edge research within the areas of human genetics and genomics in hereditary diseases and cancer. We put our clinical services and scientific knowhow at the disposal of our patients, by offering state of the art diagnostic and counseling facilities, and potential clinical strategies.

The laboratory for Cytogenetics and Genome Research spearheads technologies to map the causes and mechanisms underlying rare developmental disorders, improve diagnosis of rare diseases and prenatal and preimplantation genetic diagnosis to avoid transmission of disease alleles. The lab has over 15 years of experience in liquid biopsies, and was among the first to implement non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) in a clinical setting in Europe. The team demonstrated that NIPT profiling enables detection of incipient tumours, underpinning the value of cfDNA as a cancer screening tool. The latest in-house developed machine-learning-based pipeline offers a cost-effective screening tool for pan-cancer detection and typing from shallow whole-genome sequencing data.

The Cancer and pregnancy interdisciplinary research in the Gynaecological Oncology laboratory focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of pregnant cancer patients and monitoring of newborns that were prenatally exposed to chemotherapy. In this framework, we are performing in vitro, in vivo, ex vivo and clinical studies. We also have a special interest in the use of cfDNA for detecting cancer during pregnancy.

Kyushu University Beppu Hosptial

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Kyushu University Beppu Hospital was established in 1931 as a branch of the main hospital of Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan. We have four medical departments, such as surgery, internal medicine, orthopedics and the radiation in Beppu city. In our department, we have five senior surgeons for operations of 200 digestive system cancers and 100 breast cancers per year and are mentors who orchestrate a dozen graduate students as mentee for research works to disclose the bona-fide truth to eradicate cancers.

In our department of surgery, we organize a lab for basic and translational research work. At first, we are elucidating the cancer evolution to foster the intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) which have attracted increasing attention in the cancer research field because ITH presumably contributes to the therapeutic and diagnostic difficulties of cancer. We applied the recent technological innovation conducting the multiregional sequencing approach, which has been popularly used to understand ITH (Uchi R, PLoS Genet 2016, Saito T. Nat Commun 2018, Yokoyama A., Nature 2019).

The second, we have been enthusiastically identifying cancer specific transcriptomes, non-coding genes, genomic alterations and epigenomic aberrations in the body fluid as the "liquid biopsy" system for early diagnosis of postoperative recurrence, concealed cancers at subclinical level in primary tumors and prediction of the susceptibility to any treatments.

Anyway, it is a great honor for us to join the ELBS meeting, I would appreciate it for the chairperson Prof. Pantel and who may concern.

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The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in Leiden, The Netherlands, strongly underpins the idea that ‘Science is the driving force behind innovative healthcare’. Outcomes of top level fundamental, translational and clinical research by LUMC researchers form a strong basis for innovative and qualitative healthcare on a national, European and international level.

A real game changer was the development of the Dutch national research agenda (NWA) in 2015. The agenda reveals the complexity of the issues challenging Dutch society today. These issues are clustered in so called routes. LUMC is involved in many of these routes and contributes this way to solving important societal challenges.

The department of Surgery LUMC focusses on cancer, trauma, transplant and complex vascular surgery, each with an extensive research program. We strive to better understand and detect diseases and to develop and apply new treatment techniques. Surgery LUMC has a data center, tissue banks and laboratory facilities at the LUMC. With these advanced resources, we conduct research at an internationally recognized level.

Over the last years our research group build a large track record in the field of biomarkers for prognosis and therapy. The tumour-stroma ratio was through the years developed to a highly accepted biomarker for the adequate selection of patients for adjuvant therapy. Biomarkers for the early detection of cancer in blood using mass spectrometry on serum samples, patients with cancer can be identified from healthy controls. Combining the knowledge of the tumor microenvironment and biomarkers in serum had led to the development of a liquid biopsy panel for tailored treatment and monitoring of patients with epithelial cancer types.

The department of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine at the LUMC houses the core facility for routine measurements of patient body fluids at 24-7 basis ( Film Clinical Chemistry Lab LUMC ). Within this department a group of scientists works on assay development with focus on implementing quantitative protein mass spectrometry as a lab-developed test.

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Besides the molecular diagnostics of germline genetic variants causal for hereditary diseases, we also focus on the detection of somatic variants, found in cancer and mosaic diseases.

Recent developments include several diagnostic tests for liquid biopsy analysis to support treatment decisions, detection of residual disease, disease monitoring, and even cancer screening. With the use of targeted hotspot assays and Duplex sequencing, we offer the sensitive and specific detection of clinically actionable variants present in lowest variant allele frequencies (VAFs) in plasma. In addition, we have developed a whole-genome sequencing (WGS) approach that enables highly sensitive, untargeted detection of ctDNA in all cancer patients regardless of tumor hotspot variants. By using distinct cutoffs for detection and quantification of ctDNA in all of our approaches, we can reliably detect residual disease after surgery as well as response or resistance to treatment.

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The COIN-consortium is a Dutch initiative in which a nation-wide team of multidisciplinary specialists are working together towards a coordinated clinical implementation of liquid biopsy ctDNA analysis as an innovative form of minimal invasive molecular diagnostics in the healthcare system of The Netherlands.

Over the past years multiple platforms have been developed to detect ctDNA, yielding industry-proven technologies suited for clinical implementation (see roadmap), yet, ctDNA clinical utility remains to be proven. The COIN-project aims to enable coordinated implementation of ctDNA diagnostics in clinical practice. The project consists of two parts. Part 1 aims to establish a generic multidisciplinary framework to guide successful clinical implementation of ctDNA and other future biomarkers. Challenges in (pre-)analysis, reporting, quality assurance, cost-effectiveness, clinical utility, and reimbursement will be addressed making use of the knowledge generated in multiple observational studies. These studies focus on colorectal and non-small cell lung cancer as there is a substantial and active ctDNA research community for these two tumor types. Part 2 of COIN is the first Dutch ctDNA biomarker-driven intervention study, MEDOCC-CrEATE, in which patients with stage II colon cancer will be offered adjuvant chemotherapy based on the presence of ctDNA in their blood after surgery. The intervention arm will be compared to current standard of care. The patient inclusion of MEDOCC-CrEATE started in June 2020.

Contact: COIN@nki.nl

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The Laboratory of Clinical and Experimental Pathology (LPCE) (Pasteur Hospital, University Côte d’Azur) founded in 2006 has an expertise mainly in lung and thyroid cancers and in melanoma. This laboratory developed pathology and biology diagnosis using different approaches (pathological and cytological diagnosis, immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization and molecular biology using targeted or next generation sequencing). This laboratory is associated with the FHU OncoAge (www.oncoage.org) and the Institute for Ageing and Cancer of Nice (IRCAN, www.ircan.org). Moreover, a dedicated biobank has been set up in the LPCE (www.biobank-cotedazur) mainly focus on blood and tissue samples provided by patients with lung cancer, melanoma and thyroid diseases. A specific training program in biobanking has been created in 2016 (MSc Biobanks and Complex data Management, http://web.univ-cotedazur.fr//en/education/informations-utiles/les-informations-utiles/biobanks-complex-data). A liquid biopsy unit has been developed at the LPCE in 2009 in order to organize translational research programs which have been granted by the French NCI. Moreover, the liquid biopsy unit takes responsability for the detection of different predictive biomarkers in daily practice (EGFR mutations, ALK rearangement, BRAF/NRAS mutations, etc.) and participates to different clinical trials using both specific based PCR sequencing and next generation sequencing approaches with gene panels of different sizes.

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Queen Mary University of London is a leading research-intensive University, where we believe that when views collide, disciplines interact, and perspectives intersect, truly original thought takes form. Queen Mary is one of 24 leading UK universities represented by the Russell Group, that are committed to maintaining the very best research, an outstanding teaching and learning experience, excellent graduate employability and unrivalled links with businesses and the public sector. The results of the most recent national assessment of research – the Research Excellence Framework 2021 – have confirmed our place in the very top group of research-led universities in the UK. We were ranked 7th in the UK among multi-faculty universities, with 92% of our research assessed as internationally excellent or world-leading.

Barts Cancer Institute (BCI) is part of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at Queen Mary University of London, and is one of the top five cancer research centres in the UK. Our overriding objective is to ensure that our research, which aims to identify ways to prevent cancer and develop better diagnostics and treatments, is relevant to and will have a significant impact on all cancer patients. Together with the Centre for Cancer Prevention at Queen Mary’s Wolfson Institute of Population Health, BCI forms the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Barts Centre – one of 15 Cancer Research UK Centres of Excellence.

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Stavanger University Hospital is the only hospital in the large area of south Rogaland on the west coast of Norway. The hospital covers a population of approximately 460.000 inhabitants; the hospital has 785 beds and nearly 8000 employees. Research is one of the main four tasks of the hospital, and cancer is one of the major diagnoses treated.

The main research areas at the Department of Hematology and Oncology are translational research, clinical trials and development of new treatment strategies. The main focus for the micrometastasis research group at the department is translational research on breast and pancreatic cancer, with a special focus on circulating/disseminated tumor cells and circulating tumor DNA detection. The micrometastasis group has a broad collaboration including both national and international partners, like Karolinska Institutet and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and was recently acknowledged to be part of The Norwegian Cancer Society’s national expert group on pancreatic cancer. Our micrometastasis research group is located in the Laboratory for molecular biology, a modern multi-disciplinary core facility for cancer research, founded in 2007, with state-of-the art infrastructure and instruments that facilitates a wide range of molecular analyses.

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The Oncopole site of Toulouse University Cancer Institute (IUCT-O), together with Cancer Research Center of Toulouse (CRCT), is a Comprehensive Cancer Center member of Organization of European Cancer Institutes (OECI) offering pioneering therapies and technologies. IUCT‑O has three missions, treatment, research (clinical trials, care management and translational research) and teaching, IUCT-located in the heart of a campus grouping together public and private stakeholders involved in the fight against cancer from basic science to clinical trials. The Prospective Biology Unit within the Medical Laboratory of IUCT-O is dedicated to clinical research, innovation and medico-economic evaluation of liquid biopsies in cancers. Together with clinicians and CRCT research teams and the support of CRCT technology cluster (cell imaging, genomic and transcriptomic with single cell analysis …), we take an active part in translational research and clinical trials. Our projects focus on the development of new circulating biological markers for diagnosis, prognosis, longitudinal follow-up of the disease and prediction of therapeutic response, with the molecular analysis of circulating tumor DNA, enrichment and phenotypic characterization of circulating tumor cells, quantification of circulating miRNAs, using innovative technologies such as digital droplet PCR for ctDNA analysis, ISET technology for CTC enrichment or nCounter Analysis System (Nanostring) for miRNA assays.

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The laboratories at the Department of Dermatology at the University Hospital Essen are primarily focused on the diagnosis and therapy of skin tumors with the goal of transferring research results directly into the clinic. The main research focus is on malignant melanoma, a malignant tumor that originates from pigment producing cells of the skin called melanocytes. Melanoma is an aggressive tumor with dramatically reduced patient survival when disseminated to distant organs. Despite the historic success of modern cancer drugs, the cure of patients is hampered by the dramatic tumor heterogeneity and plasticity of melanoma leading to therapy failure in most cases and limited diagnostic options to monitor therapy response/resistance over time. The Tumor Heterogeneity and Plasticity lab (headed by Prof. Dr. med. Alexander Roesch) has dedicated reasearch projects towards finding ways to overcome the intrinsic therapy resistance of melanoma cell subpopulations in vitro and in vivo. Specifically, the lab focuses on the characterization of tumor heterogeneity, phenotypic plasticity of melanoma cell subpopulations, bioenergetic metabolism, and histone 3 K4 demethylases. Translational research questions are concentrated on how to overcome inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity in patients. Liquid biopsies, comprising of the noninvasive analysis of circulating tumor-derived material in the blood, represent an innovative tool in precision oncology and provide a potential way to overcome current limitations associated with tissue biopsies.

For further details feel free to visit our department’s website and follow our group on Twitter (@LabRoesch).

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University of Gothenburg is among the largest universities in Northern Europe (approx. 47,000 students and 6,000 employees). With eight faculties, University of Gothenburg is also the most wide-ranging and versatile university in Sweden. University of Gothenburg is an active international university engaged in collaborative projects and partnerships globally. Institute of Biomedicine at Sahlgrenska Academy, the medical faculty at University of Gothenburg, has an extensive involvement in education and research. The research activities are many and diverse, but primarily fall into one of four key areas: Infection and Immunology, Cancer and Stem Cell Biology, Genetics and Molecular Medicine, and Cell and Molecular Biology including Glycobiology. The institute actively strives to create environments for translational research, promoting constellations of pre-clinical and clinical groups with extensive international collaborations.

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University of Patras was founded in 1964. It has 3.931 Postgraduate students, 35 Departments, 161 Laboratories and 17 Clinics, The Department of Biology was founded in 1967 and is the first Department of Biology founded in Greece. The Department provides studies on all aspects of Biological science. The research activities of the members of the department cover a wide range of cutting-edge biological technologies. The Department of Biology is housed in a building of 25000 sq.m. and has a significant infrastructure of scientific equipment distributed in educational and research laboratories.

The Laboratory of Biochemistry/Liquid Biopsy situated in the Department of Biology is focused on the Evaluation of signal transduction pathways in Cancer Cells. Enumeration and Characterization of Circulating and Disseminated Tumor Cells (CTCs/DTCs). Investigation of the crosstalk between CTCs and Immune Cells. Development of innovative diagnostic tools for the detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in patients' blood. Assessment of tailor-made substrates for three-dimensional (3D) cultures of tumor cells and CTCs to test drug efficacy (laser-made 3D scaffolds induced on natural biopolymer films). Participation in the development of hyperspectral artificial vision-guided robotic microscope for fixed cells and live cell imaging (CTCs).