Visit of a member of the National Council for Education, Research and Innovation

Cancer research is seen as a field of innovation for the development of new therapeutic strategies that will later also be used in other medical areas. For example, oncology is one of the drivers of personalized medicine and the development of RNA vaccines against Covid-19 can also be traced back to oncological research. The researchers at the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) of MedUni Vienna and Vienna General Hospital are working with innovative means to fathom the mechanisms of the disease and ultimately to develop healing approaches.

The aim of the CCC management was therefore to bring Maria Theresia Niss closer to the broad spectrum of scientific activities at the research center and to offer her an overview of the innovative efforts and developments.

From cell sorters to surgical robots

The key to a Comprehensive Cancer Center is the close collaboration between basic science and clinical research that enables translational research.

At the Institute for Cancer Research, new findings are accordingly gained for the diagnosis and therapy of the disease, which can later be translated into clinical application. Maria Sibilia, the head of the research facility, presented the main areas of activity of the institute and singled out one in particular: research into immune cells that can be found in tumors and the development of concepts that make tumor cells recognizable and thus vulnerable to the immune system. She also presented the high-tech devices such as cell sorters and high-resolution microscopes, which are indispensable for modern research.

At the University Clinic for Radiation Oncology, Maria Theresia Niss was able to see the latest image-guided high-precision radiotherapy in action. The head of the clinic, Joachim Widder, also gave her an insight into the "digital clinic", a system developed at the clinic that digitally collects medically relevant patient data for clinical process optimization and makes it usable for science and development with the help of artificial intelligence.

The head of the Clinical Department for Hematology and Hemostaseology, Ulrich Jäger, explained the principle of personalized medicine using CAR-T-cell therapy. It is a special form of personalized immunotherapy that opens up a new therapy option that has a lasting effect for a collective of patients that was previously considered to have been completely exhausted. It represents a milestone in the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma, which has been tested very successfully at the department.

At the University Clinic for Urology, Harun Fajkovic, Manuela Schmidinger and Christian Seitz presented the DaVinci surgical robot on behalf of the head of the clinic, Shahrokh Shariat. Its use, for example, in the removal of the prostate, has many advantages for the patient in particular, such as less pain, less risk of infection, less blood loss and less scarring. In addition, the surgical robot shortens hospital stays in many cases.

Last but not least, Renate Kain, Head of the Clinical Institute for Pathology, gave an insight into the processes of a modern pathological facility. The focus was on the extraction and processing of oncological tissue and a presentation of the biobank, a core part of oncological research.

In the final discussion round, Maria Theresia Niss had the opportunity to discuss her impressions with the CCC experts and to take away ideas for her parliamentary work. Joachim Widder, head of the CCC, said: "The visit of Dr. Niss gave the CCC the opportunity to present the achievements and innovative strength of cancer research at MedUni Vienna, but also to point out the structural challenges that local cancer researchers are confronted with."