Professor Fabien Calvo took on the role of Chief Scientific Officer for Cancer Core Europe at the beginning of December. Based in Paris he is a Professor of Pharmacology specialising in genomics and the biology of metastatic disease, translational research, preclinical pharmacology and early clinical trials in haematology and oncology.
In 2008 Professor Calvo helped to launch the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), a global initiative to catalogue the genetic code of 50 different cancers. Cambridge is leading the project to produce the genetic sequence of normal cell and tumour cell DNA for oesophageal adenocarcinoma and Barrett’s oesophagus, and is also contributing to the genetic sequencing of prostate and breast cancer for this initiative.
In his new role as Cancer Core Europe Chief Scientific Officer, Professor Calvo will organise and coordinate activities for the European network, specifically working closely with the co-chairs, the Steering Group and the other scientific officers involved. He will also assist the consortium in developing a global vision and planning and delivering the implementation of the strategy.
Launched in July 2014, Cancer Core Europe is a consortium of six leading cancer centres in Europe, brought together to develop a common structure for research and healthcare to accelerate the development of new cancer treatments and precision medicine.
The six comprehensive cancer centres of Cancer Core Europe are: Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus Grand Paris (Villejuif – France), Cambridge Cancer research UK Centre (Cambridge, United Kingdom), Karolinska Institutet – KI (Stockholm, Sweden), Netherlands Cancer Institute – NKI (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology – VHIO (Barcelona, Spain) and the German Cancer Research Center – DKFZ and its National Center for Tumor Diseases – NCT (Heidelberg, Germany).
Yearly within the Cancer Core Europe consortium around 60,000 new cancer patients are diagnosed, 300,000 cancer treatments are delivered and an estimated 1,000,000 outpatients visits take place.
More than 1,500 clinical trials are conducted at these six cancer centres annually. Together with the strengths in basic and translational cancer research, the consortium structure will represent and harness a major force in European cancer research.
As a working consortium, Cancer Core Europe is a great translational platform to bridge ‘bench-to-bedside and bedside-to-bench’ and also for conducting next-generation clinical trials focused on proof-of-concept, predictive and resistance monitoring biomarkers.
Professor Calvo is speaking at the Building Bridges in Medical Sciences Conference in Cambridge on 6 March 2015.
