Beyond the role the intestinal metagenome plays in regulating multiple physBeyond its role in regulating multiple physiological functions that impact health, the intestinal metagenome is implicated in cancer initiation, progression and responses to therapies, even for extraintestinal neoplasia. Hence, there is an urgent need to fully identify and functionally characterize minimalist commensal ecosystems relevant to cancer, with reliable and robust methods, to validate cancer-associated gut microbiome fingerprints of high clinical relevance, and to develop diagnosis tools that will become part of the oncological arsenal for the optimization and personalization of therapy. Based on retro-and pro-spective studies, with large discovery and validation cohorts enrolling >9,000 cancer patients across 10 countries, ancillary to ongoing innovative clinical trials or FDA/EMA approvals across 4 frequent cancer types, ONCOBIOME will pursue the following aims: 1/ identify and validate core or cancer-specific Gut OncoMicrobiome Signatures (GOMS) associated with cancer occurrence, prognosis, response to, or progression on, therapy (polychemotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors, dendritic cell vaccines) or adverse effects, 2/ decipher the functional relevance of these cancer-associated gut commensal ecosystems in the regulation of host metabolism, immunity and oncogenesis, 3/ integrate these GOMS with other oncology hallmarks (clinics, genomics, immunomics, metabolomics) 4/ design optimal companion tests, based on those integrated signatures to predict cancer occurrence and progression. With high carat interdisciplinary experts, ONCOBIOME expects to validate cancer or therapy-specific Gut OncoMicrobiome Signatures (GOMS) across breast, colorectal, melanoma and lung cancers adjusting for covariates, to unravel the mode of action of these GOMS in innovative platforms, thus lending support to the design of cancer preventive campaigns using well characterized pre-and pro-biotics.

BIGPICTURE, a pathology-led consortium, has the vision to become the catalyst in digital transformation in Pathology. Our mission is to create the first European GDPR compliant platform, in which both quality-controlled Whole Slide Imaging (WSI) data and advanced Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms will exist. The BIGPICTURE platform will be built on existing assets of ELIXIR EU data infrastructure, including the federated European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) technology for managing the exchange of confidential information between contributors and users. The consortium will use Cytomine, an established open-source, cross-platform framework to develop unique tools for access to WSI, including annotations and visualisation of algorithm results, while we will develop new and generic models to facilitate AI development and mining of WSI data. By engaging and building consensus with all the relevant stakeholders, we will contribute to the development of a regulatory framework for digital slides and AI-based methods. Finally, BIGPICTURE envisions sustainability of its platform through a community- based model which relies on reciprocity, value creation and inclusiveness. To achieve our vision, we have brought together Europe’s leaders in the field of computational pathology who have access to national and European high-performance computing infrastructures as well as Europe’s fully digitalised pathology departments. Additionally, the consortium has currently access to approximately 4.5 million clinical WSI covering a wider range of indications through 17 partners and 23 third parties from the largest European and international pathology and trial groups. Our consortium is further strengthened by the presence of the European Society of Pathology, Digital Pathology Association, FDA and 9 SMEs as partners, while we are further supported by professional societies, and patient advocates.