Abstract
The German Cancer Consortium (‘Deutsches Konsortium für Translationale Krebsforschung’, DKTK) is a long‐term cancer consortium, bringing together the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Germany's largest life science research center, and the leading University Medical Center‐based Comprehensive Cancer Centers (CCCs) at seven sites across Germany. DKTK was founded in 2012 following international peer review and has positioned itself since then as the leading network for translational cancer research in Germany. DKTK is long term funded by the German Ministry of Research and Education and the federal states of each DKTK partner site. DKTK acts at the interface between basic and clinical cancer research, one major focus being to generate suitable multisite cooperation structures and provide the basis for including higher numbers of patients and facilitate effective collaborative forward and reverse translational cancer research. The consortium addresses areas of high scientific and medical relevance and develops critical infrastructures, for example, for omics technologies, clinical and research big data exchange and analysis, imaging, and clinical grade drug manufacturing. Moreover, DKTK provides a very attractive environment for interdisciplinary and interinstitutional training and career development for clinician and medical scientists.
Highlights
Strategies to improve the impact of cancer research for patients have been widely discussed in Germany and Europe over the past two decades
Deutsches Konsortium fu€r Translationale Krebsforschung (DKTK) acts at the interface between basic and clinical cancer research, one major focus being to generate suitable multisite cooperation structures and provide the basis for including higher numbers of patients and facilitate effective collaborative forward and reverse translational cancer research
Another reason is that translating findings from basic research into the clinic is limited by structural deficits in facilitating interactions between basic and clinical research
Summary
Strategies to improve the impact of cancer research for patients have been widely discussed in Germany and Europe over the past two decades. One factor contributing to limited progress is the complexity of the disease cancer, with enormous biological heterogeneities between different tumor classes, tumors within each class in different patients, in each individual tumor (or its metastases) and during time of tumor progression and therapy. Another reason is that translating findings from basic research into the clinic is limited by structural deficits in facilitating interactions between basic and clinical research. Combatting these problems requires a critical mass of patients, resources, and infrastructures that can only be achieved through large-scale cooperation which overcome the problem of fragmentation of cancer care and cancer research
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