Infectious pathogens may trigger cancer. This connection is investigated by Prof. Tim Greten and his Infection and Cancer research group at TWINCORE using the example of liver cancer - also known as hepatocellular carcinoma. He investigates how the immune system functions in the arise of liver cancer, the structures that it recognises and those it does not and how these mechanisms can be used for therapies in the future. As a senior physician at the Clinic for Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology he is head of a clinical research group at the MHH and treats patients there, just a few minutes distant. Until now - because this translation research has brought Tim Greten to the attention of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, USA. "The NCI offered me the position of head of the Gastrointestinal Oncology department. This was an offer that I simply could not refuse," he says - and is currently in the process of moving to the US with his wife and colleague Dr. Firouzeh Korangy-Greten and a number of other staff. In Bethesda, just a few kilometres from Washington DC, Tim Greten will continue to dedicate his efforts to translation research. As a research group leader he will develop clinical studies there in order to bring findings from his scientific basic research to the patients. "The NCI is the most important cancer research establishment in the world and it is rare for a scientist working in Germany to receive such an offer," explains Prof. Michael Manns, Director of the Clinic for Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology at the MHH. "We will continue to co-operate with Tim Greten in the future, for example in the Helmholtz Alliance Immune Therapy against Cancer. And even though he is moving from the TWINCORE translation centre to America, the link will remain, emphasises Prof. Ulrich Kalinke, Director of TWINCORE: "We will continue to discuss translational themes and have already considered exchange programmes for researchers in the field of translation."
