TRANSCAN 3 - JTC 2024

FRRB is pleased to announce the release of the new ERA-NET TRANSCAN 3 Joint Transnational Call (JTC 2024) 'Combination therapies against cancer: new opportunities for translational research' dedicated to transnational research projects for the identification of novel individualised combination therapies that can help overcome cancer resistance and improve clinical outcomes while avoiding undesirable side effects. 

 

Approaches must be aimed at obtaining a portfolio of renewed methods for new effective combination therapy strategies. Projects must start from a sound and established hypothesis and potential improvements in clinical practice must be a primary focus. Moreover, proposals should address only one of the three specific objectives listed below. 

 

Objective 1. Development of new tumour models for testing innovative drug combination therapies.

Isolation and characterisation of tumour infiltrating immune/stromal cells for in vitro studies (3D culture systems; patient-derived organoids; patient-derived xenografts). The final aim is to obtain a model suitable, in terms of feasibility and reproducibility, for testing new drugs co-treatments and/or genetic manipulation.  

 

Objective 2. Design and development of high-throughput drug combination screening platforms to test new combination therapies.

Platform design and development should act on different levels: using patients-derived primary cell cultures, rapidly evaluating new drugs alone or in combination with other drugs or radiotherapy at the individual patient level, combining patients’ genomics data with computational tools to predict drug responses for individual cancer patients.                                                                                                                      

 

Protocols for drug combination assays with dose response matrix, as well as computational tools to facilitate plate design and synergy modelling, development of tailor-made software tools for scoring high-throughput drug combinations should be designed.

 

Objective 3. Using combination strategies of immunotherapy and radiotherapy to overcome drug resistance.

Due to the abscopic effect, radiotherapy treatment can provoke a strong systemic immune response. This effect could be exploited to test combinations of radiotherapy and immunotherapy treatments.Thus, in this objective, the synergistic effect of radiations (e.g. hypofractionated RT, multi-site radiation, low-dose radiation and new radiation technologies, such as FLASH RT, proton RT), with immune checkpoint inhibitors should be explored, including evaluation of the effects on immune cells, which can be considered as putative biomarkers  and are the key players in the molecular mechanisms underlying the immune response.

 

The following type of research projects are excluded from the call:

Phase II clinical studies.

 

TRANSCAN-3 also supports capacity building activities to promote the formation and strengthening of multidisciplinary teams in an integrated process of exchange/mobility of individual researchers/professionals to bring new expertise to an existing multidisciplinary translational team, or recruitment of individual researchers/professionals by a translational research team in order to cover skills and 'know-how' not available in the existing team. 

 

Regarding the definitions and topics of the Call, the original English text of the Call is available on the official project page.

FRRB, as Funding agency and partner of the project, will encourage Public or Private IRCCS (Scientific Institutes for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care), Public Health Care Providers (ASST), Aziende di Tutela della Salute (ATS), Agenzia Regionale Emergenza Urgenza (AREU), Universities and Research Institutes located on the Lombardy territory to present a project proposal. 

 

For this Call FRRB has allocated a total budget of Euro 2.000.000,00.

 

More information on the official project page: https://transcan.eu/funding/calls/joint-call-jtc-2024-.kl

 

Pre-eligibility

According to internal procedures, Regional Foundation for Biomedical Research (FRRB) will grant an eligibility clearance to the potential applicants prior to the submission of the pre-proposals.

Pre-eligibility documents can be downloaded from the official project page and on this page, in the "Download documents" section.

FRRB provides an excel sheet to help applicants abide by FRRB funding rules. This form is meant to support the PIs in the elaboration of the budget, but it does not need to be sent to FRRB.