Dr Pajtler leads the Early Cancer Diagnostics team which consists of members with a background in biology, biotechnology, bioinformatics or medicine. They are strongly involved in all three major programs of the Hopp Children’s Cancer Center. Preclinical, translational and clinical research is conducted in three closely interconnected focus areas outlined below. These aim at improvement of diagnostic accuracy and targetability of selected central nervous system tumors or sarcoma types and early cancer detection including in-depth molecular tumor analysis from body fluids (liquid biopsies). Through an intense cross-disciplinary strategy involving other KiTZ groups and their (inter)national collaboration partners, they often follow a bedside-to-bench approach (reverse translation) including modeling of tumor types and early adoption of innovative and powerful technologies. Their group is also part of the platform programs INFORM (relapsed/recurrent malignancies) and MSP2.0 (molecular sarcoma pathology) allowing for rapid validation and clinical translation.
