Cancer Research in Switzerland - Krebsliga Schweiz

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Since 2003 the Foundation Cancer Research Switzerland
(formerly Oncosuisse) has supported translational
and clinical research with two funding programmes:
Collaborative Cancer Research Projects
(CCRP) and International Clinical Cancer Research
Groups (ICP). The aim of both the CCRP and ICP is
to support collaboration among different research
disciplines and institutes at the national level – and in
the case of the ICP at the international level.
Collaborative Cancer Research Projects (CCRP)
Cancer research is a complex undertaking, especially
due to the enormous advances in molecular genetics
in recent decades. Today it is impossible for individual
disciplines or research teams to have an overview
of this complexity. Central questions can only
be tackled with close cooperation among various
specialist areas and institutes. And it often takes
many years or decades until a discovery in the laboratory
finally results in a clinical application for patients.
The CCRP are multidisciplinary research collabora-
tions with a longer-term duration of five or more
years. The focus is on supporting translational research
studies that shorten the way from the laboratory
to the hospital bed and thus seek to boost medical
progress. The research projects are often complex
and made up of several subprojects that are conducted
at different institutes. The aim is for diverse
specialists in research and medicine to pursue a common
objective, exchange their ideas, expertise, and
findings, and in this way to improve and accelerate
the knowledge gain.
Programme research: Supporting translational and
clinical research
Kurt Bodenmüller
Communications manager at the Scientific Office, Swiss Cancer League
International Clinical Cancer Research Groups
(ICP)
In contrast to basic research in Switzerland, which is
among the world’s best, clinical cancer research in
this country is faced with a number of political, structural,
and monetary difficulties. Over the last three
decades, this has caused Swiss clinical research to
drop down into the midfield in an international
comparison. Supporting clinical research is therefore
a pressing concern not only for the Swiss Cancer
League and the Foundation Swiss Cancer Research.
The ICP are clinical research groups in which re-
searchers and physicians in several countries work
together. These international research projects have
their centres in Switzerland, which means that they
are coordinated and managed from within Switzerland.
A research group in the ICP programme receives
funding of maximum CHF 200,000 per year,
or a total of CHF 800,000 over the four years of the
project duration.
Since the funding launch, total grants of CHF 14.7
million have been provided for programme research
(in the period 2004 to 2010), of which CHF 10.1 million
went to six CCRP and CHF 4.6 million went to
seven ICP. The CCRP, which earmarked large funds,
were discontinued in 2009 in favour of the better