INCa’s attribution of new funding for cancer research clusters for the period 2008-2010 was done as part of a call for bids called “The Cancer Clusters Program“(ProCan). In this context, CLARA revamped its scientific strategy, confirming its core focus on areas of excellence.

CLARA adopted a matrix strategy based on a strong foundation consisting of the Lyonbiopôle competitive cluster, the Grenoble cluster dedicated to nanotechnology in life science applications, the Synergie Lyon Cancer RTRS research group, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the Étoile hadrontherapy project. In other words, this strategy draws heavily upon the major core programs located within the Cancéropôle’s geographical area.

This foundation will support and strengthen the six central cancer research focus areas that are the cornerstone of CLARA:

• Focus I – Nanotechnology, Imaging and Cancer
• Focus II – Infections and Cancer
• Focus III – Nutrition and Cancer
• Focus IV – Epidemiology, Human and Social Sciences (SHS), Patient Education and Organization of Care
• Focus V – Therapy Targeting, Modeling and Clinical Research
• Focus VI – Tumor Escape

Alongside the implementation of these six top priority focus areas, CLARA has launched a program to organize and carry out research activities by pathology. This process aims to increase the critical mass of the research teams on a given pathology, enabling them to work with greater coordination on larger scale projects and to shorten the time required to test new methods of patient diagnosis and treatment. So far, four networks have begun their organization phase. These networks focus on transverse neuro-oncology, neuroendocrine tumors, ovarian tumors and pediatric oncology/hematology.

Central research focus areas

Disease study networks

IARC platform

Clermont-Ferrand platform

Grenoble platform

East Lyon platform

South Lyon platform

Saint-Etienne platform