INCa Origins and Causes of Pediatric Cancers

Grants are available to consortiums in France for projects researching the origins and causes of pediatric cancers.

France’s Institut National du Cancer (INCa – National Cancer Institute) was created in 2004 and is the health and science agency responsible for cancer control in France. It reports to the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Ministry of National Education, Higher Learning and Research. Its goals include reducing the incidence of avoidable cancers and the number of cancer deaths, improving the quality of life of people with cancer during and after their illness, and reducing inequalities related to cancer.

INCa’s Origins and Causes of Pediatric Cancers call for projects is aimed at strengthening and structuring research on the origins and causes of pediatric cancers, and covers the fields of basic and translational research in pediatric oncology.

Particular focus will be placed on the following themes (non-exhaustive list): 

• Immunity-development interactions (eg the analysis of immune system maturation and specific infectious factors, study of interactions between immunity, development and oncogenesis, in order to understand the factors modulating susceptibility to childhood cancers, etc).
• Genetic and epigenetic factors (eg identification of genetic predispositions and mutations occurring early in pediatric oncogenesis, study of epigenetic alterations and mechanisms regulating gene expression in tumour-initiating cells, etc).
• Exposome and environmental factors (eg the study of early environmental exposures to pesticides, heavy metals, air pollutants, endocrine disruptors and nutritional factors, etc).
• Developmental processes and early oncogenesis (eg investigation of the early stages of differentiation and maturation of the nervous and hematopoietic systems and their contribution to malignant transformation, identification of the cellular origin of tumours and the signaling pathways involved in their initiation and progression, study of the mechanisms of cellular plasticity and dysregulation of embryonic development, etc).
• Innovative modeling (eg the development of computational modeling approaches, particularly through artificial intelligence, to analyse tumour initiation and simulate, for example, the complex interactions between genetic, environmental, and developmental factors, etc).