The CONnective TIssue CAncers NETwork to integrate European Experience (CONTICANET) is dedicated to promoting research into the connective tissue cancers in adults, adolescents and children. Funded by the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Program (LSH-2004-2.2.0-1), this Network of Excellence kicked off in February 2006, funded for a five-year period. Connective tissue cancers include more than 50 different rare tumours. Within the European Union, incidence is not well known, but considered to be between 2-6 per 100,000 persons per year. Connective tissue cancers, including sarcomas, GIST, aggressive fibromatosis and hamartomas affect children, adolescents and adults, constituting 2% of adult cancers and 15% of paediatric cancers. As with many rare diseases, the low number of cases per country per year hinders efforts to further the understanding of these cancers, as well as the development of treatments. CONTICANET is thus generating a critical mass of key stakeholders in order to rectify the obstacles caused by data fragmentation, researcher mobility, and the heterogeneity of both methodologies and legislation. The CONTICANET network includes some 250 researchers and physicians, making it one of the largest concentrations of “molecular research and clinical pharmacological transfer” in the world focusing on connective tissue cancers. The network seeks to harmonise efforts by promoting joint research activities, establishing standard operating procedures, and making available common databases and tissue banks. In order to improve the management of connective tissue cancers and facilitate new treatment development, CONTICANET is contributing to the following efforts:
enhanced knowledge of disease epidemiology an assessment of current medical treatments a standardisation of the molecular characterisation identifying and validating new targets, screening agents and pharmacodynamic studies pharmacovigilance, clinical pharmacology, and the study of host-tumour relations in the context of transfer research projects
A consortium of 20 different organisations – major cancer centres, academic institutions, and private enterprises – hailing from nine different European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Slovenia and the UK) is creating the environment necessary to facilitate collaborative research efforts by developing standardised procedures that will help propagate excellence in the field. The consortium members contribute 70% of all European and 30% of all worldwide peer-reviewed relevant publications. Various members bring to the table a portfolio of more than 30 innovative agents at various stages of development and screening technologies unavailable outside the consortium. Each of the network’s partners is contributing its own particular expertise to the project:
A team from Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University coordinates the network, chairs the scientific advisory board, and leads several initiatives, including the epidemiology, molecular epidemiology and medical practice evaluation joint research activities and the interaction with the advocacy groups for adults and children. CONTICANET’s overall project coordinator Jean-Yves Blay is professor of medicine at the Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University as well as chairman of the Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group of EORTC and an active member of the European Society of Medical Oncology. He has published over 210 peer-reviewed articles. Amongst other activities, the Claude Bernard Lyon University team also has research underway to identify mechanisms of action of imatinib and other TKI or GIST cells, cellular models of GIST, and aggressive fibromatosis and selected sarcoma subtypes, and to develop clinical research of innovative targeted agents in phase I and II trials in sarcomas and other tumour types. Read more
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