New Molecular Tools to Advance Bavarian Precision Oncology
Freising – The lighthouse project “Omics, Genomics, Liquid Biopsy (LT Omics)” has secured continued funding and is now entering its third and final two year project phase.
Coordinated by Prof. Rainer Claus (University Hospital Augsburg) within the Bavarian Cancer Research Center (BZKF), the initiative focuses on establishing multi-omics technologies, especially proteogenomics and liquid biopsy, as a central shared resource for all partners in the network.
By closely linking research and clinical practice, LT Omics aims to strengthen translational cancer research across Bavaria. The project emphasizes the harmonization of decentralized molecular biology workflows, coordinated support for innovative clinical studies, and the standardization of sample logistics and pre-analytics across participating institutions.
Its overarching objective is to generate tangible benefits for both researchers and cancer patients throughout Bavaria by making advanced OMICs technologies widely available, clinically applicable, and directly relevant to patient care – particularly through their integration into molecular tumor boards (MTBs) and related decision-making processes.
Shaping the Next Generation of Molecular Tumor Boards
Within LT Omics, the group led by Prof. Dr. Bernhard Küster (Technical University of Munich), founding Director of the Center for Infection Prevention (ZIP) in Freising/Weihenstephan and Deputy Speaker of LT Omics, is developing advanced molecular profiling workflows that will underpin the next generation of Molecular Tumor Boards in the BZKF network.
A major strength of this approach is the capacity to achieve high-resolution functional molecular profiling even with minimal patient material, which is critical for rare and hard-to-treat cancers. Prof. Küster’s team has refined and standardized proteomic and phosphoproteomic workflows for complex clinical samples, ensuring quantitative precision and reproducibility across multiple sites, overcoming one of the major challenges of multi-center studies.
By enabling ultra-low-input clinical-grade phosphoproteomic profiling and providing the expertise to translate complex molecular data into actionable clinical insights, the team is helping MTBs and clinical studies move beyond mutation detection toward a true understanding of tumor biology and function. This progress directly supports the LT Omics mission to establish a sustainable, high-impact infrastructure for precision oncology across Bavaria.
Further links:
- Next Generation Tumor-Diagnostics: Omics, Genomics, und Liquid Biopsy (in German)
- Projekt Concept & Milestones