ONCOBIOME, 1st consortium about microbiome & cancer, led by Gustave Roussy

Gustave Roussy, leading European Cancer Centre, is collaborating with 16 international partners in the Oncobiome consortium. The objective of the programme is to determine the relationship between intestinal microbial signatures (GOMS) and the incidence, prognosis and resistance to treatment (and toxicity of this) in cancers of breast, colon, lung and melanoma. .

Gustave Roussy, one of 18 Cancer Centres and member of Unicancer, was chosen for its Oncobiome project by the European Commission as a result of the tendering process for project SC1-BHC-03-2018, “Exploitation of research results and the potential for application of the human microbiome in prediction, prevention and personalised treatment of disease”.    

The Oncobiome research units seek to confirm the link between cancer and intestinal microbiota and to show that the efficacy of treatment depends on specific features of the intestinal microbiome. It is already recognised that the intestinal metagenome is involved in the regulation of multiple physiological functions with effects on health. It is implicated in the initiation and progression of cancer and in response to treatment even in extra-intestinal neoplasia.   

“There is an urgent need to identify and characterise the commensal ecosystem minimalism related to cancer using robust, reliable techniques; to define the intestinal microbiome signatures associated with cancer; and to develop diagnostic tools which will become a part of the oncological arsenal to optimise and personalise treatment,”  explains Professor Laurence Zitvogel, scientific director of the Gustave Roussy immunotherapy programme, director of the Inserm U1015 Unit, RHU Lumiére prizewinner financed by the National Research Agency, and coordinator of Oncobiome.

The Oncobiome project will thus embark on an analysis of the data from more than 9,000 cancer patients in 8 countries (Germany, England, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Sweden) employing retrospective and prospective studies in four common cancers: breast, colorectal, lung and melanoma.  

About Oncobiome

The project commenced officially on 1st January 2019, and was launched with all the collaborators on 4th February 2019. It will run for 5 years. It is supported by the European Commission with a grant of 15 million euros. The following French units are participating:

• Gustave Roussy,
• l’Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale [National Institute for Health and Medical Research] (Inserm),
• Paris-Sud University,
• Unicancer,
• together with the three companies HalioDx, everIMMUNE and Algoé.

The other internationals collaborators are:

• Universita Degli Studi Di Trento (Italy),
• Fondazione IRCCS Instituto Nazionale dei Tumori (Italy),
• Masarykova Univerzita (Czech Republic),
• Universitätsklinikum Erlangen (Germany),
• Stichting Katholieke Universiteit (Netherlands),
• Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine Foundation (Italy),
• The Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom),
• Karolinska Institutet (Sweden ),
• le Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (Canada),
• Philipps-Universität Marburg (Germany),
• and the GBG Forschung GMBH company.