The DKTK partner site Dresden is driven by participating institutes and departments of the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus (UKD), the Faculty of Medicine (MF) and the Technische Universität Dresden as well as the Helmholtz Center Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). Cancer research is a structural focus and one of three profile lines of the MF and the UKD and integrated in the University Cancer Center Dresden (UCC)typo3/. In 2007 the UCC became one of the first four Comprehensive Cancer Centers (CCC) in Germany officially acknowledged and funded as Oncology Center of Excellence by the Deutsche Krebshilfe e.V. (DKH). Excellent additional opportunities for DKTK researchers in Dresden furthermore emerge from becoming the new partner site of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg. This novel NCT partner site Dresden, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the State of Saxony, will create, among others, new professorships, additional clinical profile areas, translational-clinical research programs and continued extension of the research infrastructure on site (e.g. via a new cancer research building).

Prof. Dr. med. Mechthild Krause is the spokesperson of the DKTK partner site Dresden and is additionally the overall coordinator of the DKTK “Radiation Oncology and Imaging” program. Dresden has been recommended by the international reviewers to focus on radiation oncology. Accordingly new DKTK professorships, research groups and infrastructures are mainly established within the program Radiation Oncology and Imaging. Added value results from the participation to all other programs Cancer Immunotherapy, Molecularly Targeted Therapy, Molecular Diagnostics, Early Detection and Biomarker Development and Exploitation of oncogenic mechanisms out of local resources.

Dresden furthermore is part of all DKTK research platforms: the Clinical Communication Platform, the Genome Sequencing and Proteome Analysis Platform and the “School of Oncology”. Here Dresden brings substantial input into platform “School of Oncology”, as Prof. Dr. med. Mechthild Krause is one of the three overall coordinators of that platform.

Further educational activities for School of Oncology Fellows on site are for example:

  • The Young Investigator Club (every 5-6 weeks, scientific/methodic/literature presentations and discussions from and for DKTK School of Oncology Fellows)
  • The DKTK-OncoRay Research Seminar (~monthly, scientific talks of national/international speakers)
  • Ad-hoc live-streaming of prominent talks/presentations at the DKFZ, e.g. Heidelberg Grand Rounds
  • 1-2 years DKTK clinician-scientist rotational positions
  • Access to local MD/PhD programs

Please find here further information to general activities for School of Oncology Fellows (organization by DKTK core center in Heidelberg).

A DKTK professorship for Translational Radiation Oncology (Mechthild Krause) and a DKTK-associated professorship for Image-Guided High Precision Radiotherapy (Esther Troost) were established within DKTK. Furthermore, a Young Investigator Group for Radioimmunotherapy was implemented (Malte von Bonin), linking radiation oncology with the DKTK Cancer Immunotherapy program.

A dedicated trial office for radiation oncology (incl. medico-legal expertise), established by DKTK Dresden in co-operation with MF/ UKD and HZDR, steers many multicenter activities and developed, together with the Federal Authority for Radiation Protection (BfS) and scientific societies, a procedural guideline for conduction of clinical trials in radiation oncology.

A pivotal basis for DKTK Dresden activities is the OncoRay Center with its proton facility that is jointly operated by the HZDR, Technische Universität and University Hospital Dresden. Together with the Heidelberger Institur für Radioonkologie typo3/(HIRO), OncoRay was nominated “National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology” (NCRO) by the German Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF) in 2010.

Please find here further information to DKTK partner site Dresden.