In childhood, adolescence and young adults (CAYA), melanoma is under-studied and non-existing tailored clinical guidelines and standardized approaches lead to a very low diagnostic accuracy. The MELCAYA project aims to understand risk factors and determinants of melanoma to improve the prevention, diagnosis and prognosis of melanomas in CAYAs through a strong international consortium with experts from 10 countries in different disciplines (e.g. oncology, paediatrics, ethics, policy making), and sectors (e.g. academic centers, SMEs, hospitals, patient associations). MELCAYA will work on different approaches. 1) By integrating existing reference European cohorts and registries, studies of genetic and environmental risk factors and progression of melanoma in CAYA will be performed through different omic methods, and a novel taxonomy of CAYA melanoma will be generated. 2) MELCAYA will also develop image-based robust and trustworthy machine learning tools and a pan-European second-opinion platform for better diagnosis specifically designed for CAYA. 3) Moreover, the validation of minimally and non-invasive disruptive tools based on artificial intelligence and volatilomics detection from exhaled breath and skin will lead to earlier detection and more accurate prognosis of melanoma in CAYA. 4) Finally, through the evidence gathered, MELCAYA will design and implement public health strategies and will actively involve patients and the general population. The results of MELCAYA will maximize its impact by making its data and results accessible and re-usable through integration into UNCAN.eu. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on ‘‘Understanding".

STRONG-AYA is a new, interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder European network to improve healthcare services, research and outcomes for Adolescents and Young Adults (AYA) with cancer, defined as individuals aged 15-39 years at cancer diagnosis. AYAs with cancer form a unique group; they face age-specific issues (e.g. infertility, unemployment, financial problems) and decreased quality of life due to cancer and its treatment. Unlike dedicated healthcare and trials for pediatric cancer patients, AYA-specific healthcare services are scarce and vary across Europe. AYAs who are at the core of society and economy need access to age-adjusted and high-quality healthcare. AYA-care and research will benefit from collection and pooling of patient-centered data and collaboration among all stakeholders: patients, healthcare professionals, scientists, and policymakers. Our consortium of clinical and scientific leaders in AYA-care, data science and registries, European Cancer Organisation, Youth Cancer Europe and EORTC will build on previous initiatives and EU grants. Within STRONG-AYA we will set up a value-based healthcare research ecosystem to develop data-driven, interactive policy and visualization tools that bring, in co-creation with all stakeholders including patients, novel insights into AYA healthcare. The project objectives, include: 1) Development of a Core Outcome Set (COS) for AYAs with cancer; 2) Implementation of the COS in 5 national healthcare systems (FR, IT, NL, UK, PL) and establish national infrastructures for outcome data management and clinical decision-making and a pan-European ecosystem that also welcomes future European countries; 3) Disseminate outcomes and facilitate interactions between national and pan-European stakeholders to develop data-driven analysis tools to process and present relevant outcomes, establish feedback loops for AYA cancer patients and the healthcare systems, and improve the reporting and assessment of outputs towards policy-makers.

PRECIOUS aims at scaling-up biodegradable nanomedicines for multimodal precision cancer immunotherapy. With 3.5 million cancer patients in Europe every year, new cancer medicines are eagerly awaited, notably for prostate and ovarian cancer. Systemically applied new immunotherapies are promising, but their toxicity is a hurdle. Vaccination against cancer is safe but rather the efficacy can be disappointing, i.e. the microenvironment shuts down anti-tumour immunity. PRECIOUS will tackle 2 bottlenecks: 1. Production of non toxic multimodal nanomedicines, which induce vigorous immune responses, and at the same time reverse immunosuppression 2. Large scale GMP production of nanomedicines, and initiate a multimodal immunotherapy Phase I trial. We want to solve these bottlenecks by: Objective 1: Two types of GMP biodegradable nanoparticles: 1) a nanovaccine, containing tumour antigens and immune activators, and 2) a nanoparticle composed of compounds, which reverses the suppression and reactivates immunity in the tumour. Objective 2: Clinical Phase I trial to show efficacy. Nanomedicines will be used by 1) injection of vaccines to evoke immune responses and 2) injection of nanoparticles in the tumour microenvironment, which slowly release compounds that reverse suppression. To achieve this, a platform is formed with 6 leading industrial partners to produce large scale GMP nanomedicines and an excellent immunomodulator track record, together with 5 renowned academic partners to perform clinical studies. Relevance to call: Large scale GMP production, industrial leadership, nanotechnology and advanced manufacturing KET technologies, translation to the clinic, marketing development.