UNCAN.eu: a European initiative to better understand cancer

In September, a new project called 4.UNCAN.eu had its kickoff which is a part of the implementation roadmap of two programs of the European Union (EU), Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the Horizon Europe Mission on Cancer. The role of 4.UNCAN.eu CSA is to prepare a blueprint for UNCAN.eu within the next 15 months.

Across the 27 EU Member States, 2.7 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year and 1.3 million die from the disease, of which over 6,000 are children, adolescents and young adults. Over half a million European citizens are childhood cancer survivors dealing with the long-term effects of the disease and its treatment, with cancer being the leading cause of child mortality from disease in Europe.

Cancer puts immense pressure on health systems, which will only become stronger with increasing life expectancies. Europe calls for a strengthened collaboration among the Member States to consolidate their stakes regarding data sciences to enable a leap forward in modern oncology and efficiently hinder the rise of disease burden.

The information, collected within UNCAN.eu, will be used to address the urgent and critical scientific and medical challenges in cancer prevention, early diagnosis, treatment and survival. 

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Together 16 main partners and 14 consulting partners are contributing to this project. The project coordinator from the University of Tartu is an associate professor in genomics Tarmo Annilo. According to Annilo, the University of Tartu belongs to the group of consulting partners and points out two main tasks:

1. participate in formulating the most important problems and challenges of cancer research, which will be used as a basis for the opening of application rounds financed by the European Union (e.g. European Cancer Mission)
2. to help coordinate the activities of the European Union platform "UNunderstanding CANcer.eu" (UNCAN.eu) at the Estonian level by involving various stakeholders and institutions (research institutions, patient associations, donors, and state institutions).

Read more about the project