Meeting with EORTC

Director Generals of BBMRI-ERIC (Jan-Eric Litton) and EORTC – European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (Denis Lacombe) met in Brussels in September 2016 to discuss the possible collaboration routes between BBMRI-ERIC and EORTC. Both organisations are active in the field of personalised medicine and face similar challenges in the regulatory landscape where forces could be joined for common goals in the future. Particularly interesting basis for collaboration may become the BBMRI-ERIC’s colon cancer cohort collection (H2020 ADOPT BBMRI-ERIC project) where multiple biobanks in Europe are working together in identifying colon cancer samples with clinical data to answer vital research questions in the future. The findings generated by BBMRI-ERIC-wide colon cancer cohort could be tested by EORTC infrastructure and clinical trials at a later stage. This would help in bridging the gap from bench to bedside and offer a way to translate findings in colon cancer into medical practice.