The European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and IBBL (Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg) have announced their partnership to support precision medicine clinical research.
This far-reaching collaboration includes handling and storing of human biological material from EORTC studies at IBBL, initiatives in biospecimen research in the context of the EORTC SPECTA programme, training programmes for pathologists involved in tissue handling for clinical trials in personalised cancer treatment, and infrastructures to support discovery and validation of diagnostic, prognostic or predictive biomarkers in cancer.
This partnership will ensure that the significant strengths of both organisations will combine to allow expansion of their respective portfolios.
“We strive to form a network of professional not-for-profit institutions that is much more than the sum of its parts. Our vision is to always produce highest-quality research, aiming for robustness, reproducibility, and reduction of bias,” said Vassilis Golfinopoulos, Medical Director at EORTC. “By working with IBBL and building on the SPECTA infrastructure, we offer to European researchers a research platform with a level of quality and cost-effectiveness only available to a few select institutions so far. This system will open more opportunities for clinicians to develop innovative trials and valuable translational research.”
EORTC’s SPECTA initiative is a pan-European biobank and molecular profiling platform for patients in colorectal, brain, lung, melanoma, and rare cancers, which aims to optimise drug access, help advance the development of targeted treatments and accelerate new healthcare delivery. Built as a collaborative network, SPECTA provides access to large sets of patient-level clinical and biological data for international, multidisciplinary clinical research.
“We are proud to become EORTC’s partner of choice for the management and storage of biosamples in the context of their clinical research,” said Marc Vandelaer, CEO of IBBL. “This partnership supports our mission of providing accredited bioservices and a biobanking infrastructure for applied medical research.”
Photo copyright IBBL
