Director's comments

We have had a busy start-up period at CCBIO, with important research data published in high-impact journals, and an international recruitment process. We have laid the fundament for our research school, and we’ve done multiple media appearances.

On November 12, 2012, the Research Council of Norway officially announced that the Centre for Cancer Biomarkers CCBIO was awarded a Norwegian Centre of Excellence. This completed 19 rewarding months of prequalification proposals and applications at different levels. Nine founding teams in the field of translational cancer research, working together with three associated groups in bioinformatics, economy and ethics, were excited to receive this stimulating challenge.

The centre was opened by RCN Director Arvid Hallén on May 30, 2013, during the 1st CCBIO Symposium. The centre has a bold aim: to improve biological understanding, early diagnosis of and treatment of cancer, by using novel biomarkers. This is a major challenge in todays personalized medicine. The complexity of cancers, in space and time, is an obstacle for effective therapy, combined with the many escape mechanisms of progressing tumors. For the task to be successful, we will focus on:

• targeted projects across model studies (Program 1)
  
  
• biomarker discovery and validation (Program 2)
  
  
• clinical studies (Program 3)

We have established a Research School for Cancer Studies aimed for young recruits and future leaders, in addition to research seminars, annual symposia, and active international collaboration and networking. Taking advice from the CCBIO Council (local) and the CCBIO Scientific Advisory Board (Carl-Henrik Heldin, Uppsala; Ate van der Zee, Groningen; Bruce Zetter, Boston), we hope to fulfill our goals in the coming years and make a difference in the war against cancer.

Lars A. Akslen

(See the report as attachment to the right.)