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Medicine: cancer, new protocols to grow tumor organoids

Trieste, the results of PreCanMed project were presented today

14 June, 19:44
(ANSA) - TRIESTE, JUNE 14 - Newly standardized protocols to grow tumor tissues taken from patients in the laboratory and the foundation of a tumor organoid bio-bank are the results of the European PreCanMed project, which allow physicians and researchers to have access to a variety of models which are capable of mimicking the characteristics of any cancer. This was an important step forward in what is called "precision medicine", thus paving the way for experimentation of personalized therapeutic approaches. The results of the PreCanMed project were presented today in Trieste at a conference attended by some of the leading scientists in the European and international cancer research.

Tumor organoid technology is a particular three-dimensional system made up of cancer cells taken from patients, which allow labs to produce 'organoids', that is, true 'avatars' of the tumor that grows inside the body.

Stefan Schoeftner, coordinator of PreCanMed and head of a research unit at the Interuniversity Consortium for Biotechnology - National Laboratory (LNCIB) based in Area Science Park, leading project partner, said that "thanks to European Union funding, in the last three years, five laboratories belonging to scientific and health facilities based in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Tyrol have been able to work together with a cutting-edge technology that will favor the progress of precision anti-cancer medicine, the patient's tumor organoids".

PreCanMed, which also trained more than 300 young researchers from different institutes, is a research and innovation project funded by the European Union under the 2014-2020 Interreg Italy-Austria Program. Italy's Universities of Trieste and Udine and the Interuniversity Consortium for Biotechnology - National Laboratory (LNCIB) based in Area Science Park (Trieste) and Austria's Drug Screening Institute and the Innsbruck Medical University participated in the project. (ANSA).

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