Dr Ged Brady talks to ecancer at the European Forum on Oncology in Berlin, May 2012 about the concept behind the EurocanPlatform and combining the resources of institute in order to create normalised templates for therapy and identifying biomarkers.

Prof Brady finds that in practice, oncologists communicate and learn through journals and conferences, but there is a need for talking to peers and learning from them. Platforms like this allow institutes and members of those institutes to bring together ideas and resources with a strong focus.

Early examples of sharing methodologies and results at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research have been in the field of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and the technology that allows for their isolation and numeration.