About this programme

The biological features of cancer represent the best training ground for the paradigm of the precision medicine: ensure that the right treatment is delivered to the right patient at the right time.  However, despite relevant initial promises, precision medicine progress is blunted by several problems encompassing the lack of robust biomarkers, the poor knowledge of cancer biology and its interplay with the host, the difficult about how to interpret diagnostic test results, the uncertainty of the molecular stratification of the patients. To foster oncological precision medicine a new deal between clinical and basic sciences is required and must be relied on the response of the basic research to precise clinical queries. “From the bed to the bench” is the motto of the PhD program in Translational Oncology. The Program offers a strong interdisciplinary training through research projects that stem from   relevant clinical questions connected with the precision medicine paradigm, offer answers based on the improvement on the knowledge of the mechanisms sustaining cancer onset and progression and finally foster the achievement of solid information to be exploited in a clinical setting. The full integration between biomedicine and exact sciences is the ground of contemporary approaches to overcome the current limit of precision medicine. This curriculum is for Graduate Students in Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology, Mathematics, Physics, Engineering and Computer Science.

Research projects will be proposed by the faculty and discussed with the enrolled Candidates. The projects will mainly deal with the emerging clinical needs to manage solid tumors, such as resistance to therapies, tumor heterogeneity and plasticity, the modulatory role of microenvironment, innovative therapeutic and diagnostic tracks.