Work packages

In Horizon Europe, which is the European Union’s research and innovation framework program for the period 2021-2027, a work package refers to a specific part or component of a funded project. It is a defined set of tasks within the larger project that has a clear objective, a defined scope, and specific deliverables or outputs.

PANCAID is segmented into seven work packages:

WP1

WP1 – Defining patient cohorts and collection of biomaterial

Lead: KI
The LBx experts UKE, MUG and UU will look into the pre-analytical, methodological conditions and first identify the best LBx method(s). KI, CNIO, Umeå, UKHD and UKSH are expert centers for pancreatic cancer and will provide both certified data sets of pancreatic cancer patients, premalignant conditions (IPMN) and individuals at risk together with stored blood samples – to be entered into a central repository at CMR who has expertise in integrating different data for further (AI-supported) analysis.

The overall goal of this WP is a plan for a prospective longitudinal study in patients with premalignant conditions of whom only a small proportion will eventually develop pancreatic cancer. In preparation for such a study, we aim to make use of already collected, well-defined archival biobanking from several partners to identify those markers best suited to detect early pancreatic cancer. We have to take into account the different pre-analytical sample procurement methods that will be recorded.
WP2

WP2 – Liquid Biopsy Analyses

Lead: UKE
UCAM, MUG and HUJI will perform a multi-omic integration of cfDNA feature based on their outstanding expertise in this field.

KI, CNIO and UU are experts in analyses of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and will profile the protein and miRNA cargo of exosomes. UKE and CHUM are pioneers in CTC diagnostics and they will add novel approaches for ultra-sensitive detection and downstream characterization of circulating tumor and host cells (task 3).

Finally, UU will also include circulating cell free proteins and metabolites into the composite LBx panel using their outstanding multiplexing technologies with high sensitivities.

All tasks performed on blood samples from WP1 will run in parallel during the training period and, depending on the computational analysis in WP3, the selected top candidates of the composite LBx panel will be validated in the validation phase compared to a standard test.

The overall aim of this work package is the identification of circulating biomarkers that can discriminate the blood samples of patients with early stages of PDAC or its precursor lesions from those samples of age-matched healthy or non-cancer individuals.
WP3

WP3 – Data management and AI analysis

Lead: CNIO
CNIO, with their longstanding expertise in applying AI approaches to integrate omics and non-omics data from WP2 partners (UKE, CNIO, MUG, CHUM, UU, UCAM, HUJI, KI), will analyse unimodal markers and will integrate them towards the composite biomarker model. HUJI will contribute to these tasks upon its long-track mastery in computational analysis of epigenomics in cfDNA using machine learning approaches. CMR as experts in building GDPR data platforms, are ideally suited to ensure data management through building a cloud-based integrative database.

PANCAID will generate and pool huge amounts of data from several layers of information (host, clinical, tu-mour, and both multi-omics and non-omics biomarkers) requiring a robust and reliable data management plat-form to handle, standardise, and retrieve them for data analysis using classical and AI-based approaches.
WP4

WP4 – Modelling of Early Detection Strategies and Health Economics

Lead: UKE
In WP4, the clinical research conducted in WP1-3 will be extended by a health services research dimension to highlight its economic and health care impact. Research in WP4 will be conducted by two highly experienced and widely establish working groups in the field of health economics, the Department of Health Economics and Health Services Research at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany (UKE) and the Research Group for Health Economics and Economic Evaluation located at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden (KI). Both will perform analyses for their respective country. Both departments have a strong background of methodological and medical expertise that cover a variety of disciplines and approaches. The work will be supported by clinical partners from UKE, KI and CNIO as well as by data sciences from MACCABI.

The overarching objective of this work package is to identify the most efficient early detection strategies for pancreatic cancer in the health care systems of Germany and Sweden, representing examples of the two main types of European health care systems (Bismarckian social insurance system; governmental national health service).
WP5

WP5 – Early pancreas cancer surveillance - ethical issues

Lead: KI
KI is leading this WP with focus on research ethics and will take the lead in the analysis of ethical issues. The other members of PANCAID (PCE, CNIO, UKE, MUG, Umeå and MACCABI) will bring in their competences from pancreatic research and clinical work to the discussion and analysis of ethical issues. Especially, the MUG group of human geneticists will contribute with their experience as well as CNIO, KI running outpatient clinics with individuals at risk.

The Israel Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) MACCABI is contributing their experience with population-based sample procurement as part of routine health care. The exploration of the literature and first versions of the analyses will be carried out at KI. Patient representatives from the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC) organised in pancreaticcancereurope.eu (PCE) will partake in the discussions from the very beginning, also involving them in the clinical studies (WP1) and digital solutions (ZAVA).

The work packages’ overall objective is to provide the ethical framework and reasoning within the PANCAID projects. This will be handled partly by an ongoing discussion within PANCAID of ethical issues, partly by an ethics research approach to some specific issues.
WP6

WP6 – Dissemination, communication, training, exploitation and guideline development

Lead: concentris
concentris and UKE employ experts in science communication, medical writing, public relation, social media, and web design. Pancreatic Cancer Europe (PCE), a European multi-stakeholder platform together with 15 national pancreas research organisations will be essential to raise awareness and increase the impact of PANCAID.

The overarching objective of WP6 is to make PANCAID results accessible in clear and customized formats and support their uptake by the scientific, clinical and public health community, guideline committees and the general public.
WP7

WP7 – Project Management

Lead: UKE
The responsibility for project management in PANCAID lies primarily with UKE who is supported logistically by concentris, a German SME with longstanding expertise in the management of EC funded research projects in the health area. The Coordinator (COO) will implement all tasks which may not be delegated by coordinators according to the EC Grant Agreement (EC-GA). The COO and concentris together will form the Project Management Office (PMO) and work on the following tasks:

The aim of WP7 is to ensure that PANCAID achieves its objectives, delivers in time and budgets its expected high-quality results.

WP1 – Defining patient cohorts and collection of biomaterial

WP2 – Liquid Biopsy Analyses

WP3 – Data management and AI analysis

WP4 – Modelling of Early Detection Strategies and Health Economics

WP5 – Early pancreas cancer surveillance - ethical issues

WP6 – Dissemination, communication, training, exploitation and guideline development

WP7 – Project Management

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