Combating cancer remains central to medical research endeavour. The opportunity for formal collaboration among research teams though, whatever the research, is notoriously scarce. Although teams from the National Institute of Biology (NIB), Slovenia, and Swansea University, have collaborated on an informal basis to foster the implementation of cancer research, properly funded projects are needed to strengthen research and innovation capabilities.
The opportunity has arisen for a twinning project - the CutCancer twinning project - through which three institutions: Swansea University, Stockholm University in Sweden, and VU Medical Center Amsterdam, in the Netherlands will share their specific and complementary expertise with the NIB in a three-year, €1,197,550 new Horizon Europe project, to begin in January 2023.
CutCancer will focus on sharing expertise in state-of-the-art testing approaches to promote frontier research in the field of preclinical cancer research. By providing training, webinars, workshops, summer schools and exchange of best practices, the project aims to expand the research and innovation capacity at NIB.
The collaboration will enable the implementation of cutting-edge approaches and methods in the field of 3D cancer research. This will be done through the transfer of knowledge, exchange of best practices and through training opportunities for scientists. Overall, the collaboration will significantly enhance the excellence of NIB at a regional and international level, promoting the calibre of research at all institutions involved.
Sharing knowledge and infrastructure through the CutCancer project will break down boundaries in research across societies and facilitate a more global scientific community. It is hoped that the partnerships developed during the project will be the start of a long-term collaborative relationship between all the universities involved, to implement transformative approaches in cancer-based research.
