Cancer Research - Europa

Expected results
Primarily, the result of DISMAL will lead to improved disease
staging and when implemented in clinical practice to personalised
medicine. As a long-term goal, reaching beyond
the duration of this proposal, the newly discovered diagnostic
markers will be further evaluated for their suitability as
targets for therapeutic intervention, specifi cally aimed to
eradicate minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients with
solid tumours. DISMAL will provide:
• knowledge about the biology of the metastatic process,
particularly genes that determine early dissemination,
homing and survival of epithelial tumour cells at diff erent
sites;
• identifi cation of relevant genes and signalling pathways
associated with tumour cell dissemination via the blood
vessels to distant organs (bone marrow);
• improved estimation of prognosis and need for therapy
of cancer patients with minimal disease through the
development of a novel diagnostic platform for DTC
detection which includes the information on the biology
of micrometastasis and metastatic progression;
• basic information about new therapeutic strategies for
preventing metastasis formation through the identifi cation
of functionally relevant therapeutic targets that are
frequently expressed on DTC. These targets might therefore
be explored for the development of new forms of
adjuvant cancer therapy aimed at specifi cally eradicating
minimal disease with less severe side eff ects than
current chemotherapy;
• a unique, large-scale biobank of freshly frozen and paraffi nembedded
epithelial primary tumours and autologous
samples of common sites of micrometastatic spread,
including bone marrow (cells) and blood (cells and serum).
The biobank will be complemented by computerised storage
of data on patients and tumour characteristics,
including histopathological analyses and clinical follow up
information.
Potential applications
Apart from the ultimate goal of DISMAL (the delivery of an
improved diagnostic platform for minimal disease detection),
the sensitive detection tools might also be applied to
a broad range of other biotechnology applications that involve
the detection of rare cells. One fi eld might be, for example,
the screening for cancer cells in body fl uids as a tool for
primary cancer diagnosis, or more sensitive and specifi c
detection of tumour cells in the lymph compartment.
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Coordinators
Klaus Pantel
Institute for Tumour Biology
University Medical Centre
Hamburg-Eppendorf
Hamburg, Germany
pantel@uke.uni-hamburg.de
Ruud Brakenhoff
VU University Medical Center
Dept. Otolaryngology
Head-Neck Surgery
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
rh.brakenhoff@vumc.nl
Partners
Björn Naume
Radium Hospital Oslo
Oslo, Norway
Laura van ’t Veer
Netherlands Cancer Institute
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Hans Tanke
Leiden University Medical Center
Leiden, The Netherlands
Monique Slijper
Utrecht University
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Project number
LSHC-CT-2005-018911
EC contribution
€ 4 200 000
Duration
36 months
Starting date
01/11/2005
Instrument
STREP
Project website
www.dkfz.de/dismal
Roland Eils
German Cancer Research Centre
Heidelberg, Germany
Wolfgang Deppert
Heinrich Pette Institut
Hamburg, Germany
Raoul Charles Coombes
Imperial College London
London, United Kingdom
Jean-Pierre Vendrell
Catherine Alix-Panabieres
University Medical Center
Lapeyronie Hospital
Montpellier, France
Paddy O’Kelly
Applied Imaging
Newcastle, United Kingdom
Rainer Uhl
TILL Photonics
Grätelfing, Germany
Bernhard Sixt
Agendia
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Michael Speicher
Medical University of Graz
Graz, Austria
CANCER RESEARCH PROJECTS FUNDED UNDER THE SIXTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME