Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany
Description of organisation
The Charité is the largest University hospital in Europe with more than 100 clinical departments and 3700 hospital beds. It also houses a large number of translational and basic science research groups. One of the 4 major research areas is oncology. In 2008, the Charité has created the Charité Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCCC), which is governing its oncology clinical and research programs.
Profile of staff members
Prof. Ulrich Keilholz is the lead for this application. He is Deputy Director Clinical Research of the CCCC and has longstanding experience in conduct of clinical trials (phase 1 through multinational phase III) and implementation of translational research projects in all clinical trial phases, in recent years concentrating on molecular characterisation of circulating tumor cells. In addition, the CCCC has created a large tumor biobank with more than 100.000 samples with complete clinical treatment and follow-up data, which can be used for the flagship proposal. For the biobank, an integrative IT platform (TIIP) has been created in order to link clinical and experimental data for research purposes. Prof. Reinhold Schäfer is Deputy Director Translational Research of the CCCC and head of the genomic core facility of the Charité within the Department of Pathology. He has longstanding experience in basic and translational research, concentrating in his own projects on ras-signalling. More recently, he has initiated research on cancer stem cells. Other scientific key personnel: Prof. Dr. Peter M. Schlag is Director of the Charité Comprehensive Cancer Center and Dr. A. Fusi working as a scientist in the CTC project.
Webpage
Recent publications relevant to the project
1. Eggermont AM, Suciu S, Santinami M, Testori A, Kruit WH, Marsden J, Punt CJ, Salès F, Gore M, Mackie R, Kusic Z, Dummer R, Hauschild A, Musat E, Spatz A, Keilholz U (2008). Adjuvant therapy with pegylated interferon alfa-2b versus observation alone in resected stage III melanoma: final results of EORTC 18991, a randomised phase III trial. Lancet 12;372:117-126
2. Ghadjar P, Coupland SE, Na IK, Noutsias M, Letsch A, Stroux A, Bauer S, Buhr HJ, Thiel E, Scheibenbogen C, Keilholz U (2006). Chemokine receptor CCR6 expression level and liver metastases in colorectal cancer. J Clin Oncol 24; 1910-1916
3. Fusi A, Liu Z, Schmittel A, Tinhofer I, Trefzer U, Keilholz U (2010). Monitoring of circulating tumor cells in a patient with synchronous metastatic melanoma and colon carcinoma. Ann Oncol. 21:1734-5
4. Klinghammer K, Knödler M, Schmittel A, Budach V, Keilholz U, Tinhofer I (2010). Association of epidermal growth factor receptor polymorphism, skin toxicity, and outcome in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck receiving cetuximab-docetaxel treatment. Clin Cancer Res. 16:304-10.
5. Fusi A, Ochsenreither S, Busse A, Rietz A, Keilholz U (2010). Expression of the stem cell marker nestin in peripheral blood of patients with melanoma. Br J Dermatol. 163:107-14