WWTF-grant supports cancer research by Anna Obenauf

IMP-Group Leader Anna Obenauf was successful in securing one of five grants within the project call "Precision Medicine" by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund WWTF. This was announced earlier today in a press conference. The grant is worth just under 1 million Euro and will support a joint project together with Thomas Wiesner of the Medical University of Vienna. The call was highly competitive, only ten percent of applications were successful.

The project “Deciphering genomic aberrations in rare skin cancers to find mechanism-based treatment strategies” combines the expertise of both groups in an effort to refine cancer diagnostics and to establish new, individually tailored therapies with less side effects. Anna Obenauf will focus on skin cancer and on the epigenomic or genomic aberrations that are associated with these tumors. She will study their interactions with the immune system and how these can be exploited to develop targeted therapies.  
 
“I am extremely happy about this grant and the opportunities it opens up”, says Anna. “It will allow us to continue our long-established collaborations in complete scientific freedom, building on the excellent infrastructure and network of the IMP.”  
 
The Vienna Science and Technology Fund WWTF is a non-profit organisation established to strengthen top research in Vienna and to promote promising young scientists. The call "Precision Medicine" in the thematic program Life Sciences addressed researchers and clinical scientists at universities and research institutions in Vienna who plan to conduct a cutting-edge research project with a major focus on precision medicine. All projects underwent evaluation by an international jury.