European Commission commits $1.8M grant for intraoperative cancer imaging

An international consortium has been awarded a $1.8 million grant from the European Commission to assess Cerenkov luminescence imaging for intraoperative imaging of gastric cancer patients.

The grant bankrolls a two-year project named CLIO (Cerenkov luminescence imaging optimization) evaluating the technique in image-guided surgeries to resect gastrointestinal cancer. The monies come from the 7th Framework Program, a research-funding body of the European Commission. Lightpoint Medical, based in Rickmansworth, U.K., announced the award yesterday.

"At Lightpoint we're excited to be a part of a collaboration involving such high caliber collaborators in this Framework Program 7 project, kindly funded by the European Commission,” Ian Quirk, Lightpoint director of clinical and regulatory affairs, said in a statement. “Significantly improving outcomes in cancer surgery is at the core of everything Lightpoint strives to achieve and this project offers the opportunity to apply that ethos to gastric cancer."

The company will be overseeing the clinical trial in collaboration with the Frederic Joliot-Curie National Research Institute for Radiobiology and Radiation Health, Semmelweis University and CROmed Research in Budapest, Hungary; Sagentia product development based in Cambridge, England; and ABX CRO, a Dresden, Germany, biotech and pharmaceutical company.