Strategies against Cancer

Experts from various fields of medicine, biology, chemistry, and computer science as well as the humanities and social sciences plan to work together in the new graduate school to train new specialists in the fight against cancer. Source: Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin

With around 1.45 million people in Germany already afflicted and 450,000 new diagnoses per year, cancer represents a major medical and social challenge. The study of cancer is thus one of the main areas of research at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the medical school operated jointly by Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. This includes investigating the molecular basis of cancer and the development of new treatments.

As part of the German government’s Excellence Initiative, Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin have proposed the establishment of a new graduate school, the Berlin School of Integrative Oncology (BSIO). The coordinator of the BSIO initiative is Professor Clemens Schmitt, director of the Molecular Cancer Research Center at Charité and Executive clinical consultant at the Division of Hematology, Oncology, and Tumor Immunology at Charité, where the new graduate school would be located. The non-university partners involved in the BSIO initiative are the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, the Leibniz Institut für Molekulare Pharmakologie, and the Hertie School of Governance.

In the BSIO planning group, 25 researchers from the fields of hematology, oncology, genetics, biochemistry, surgery, radiology, computer science, the humanities, and social sciences are working together to create a particularly closely integrated graduate education for prospective molecular oncologists and physician-scientists interested in cancer research.

This interdisciplinary approach will equip graduate students with the necessary knowledge and tools to develop novel methods for the detection of cancer as well as new therapy strategies.

The intensive exchange between research in basic sciences and clinical application aims to accelerate the development of therapies for patients. Likewise, experimental laboratory research can give priority to the most urgent issues in clinical cancer treatment.

So far, Freie Universität is home to six graduate schools funded through the German Excellence Initiative:

• Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies
• Graduate School of North American Studies
• Berlin Mathematical School
• Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies
• Languages of Emotion: Graduate School with the Excellence Cluster
• Berlin-Brandenburg School for Regenerative Therapies (BSRT)

News from 03/17/2012