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TRANSCAN-4 is a pan-European initiative for Translational Research on Cancer Metabolism: Diagnosis and Treatment, designed to foster a structured, sustainable mechanism for collaboration among national and regional cancer research funders.

As a Coordination and Support Action, this initiative brings together 19 organisations across 15 countries—including Xjenza Malta. Together with other research funding organisations from Central, Southern, Eastern, and Western Europe, alongside international partners from Canada and Taiwan— they aim to accelerate clinical applications for direct patient benefit.

Translational Research on Cancer Metabolism
- Multidisciplinary Approaches for Diagnosis and Treatment

Funding for Malta based Entities: EURO 300,000 per project

Proposals must address at least one of the aims or sub-aims described below.

Aim 1: Enabling better cancer diagnostics and monitoring through metabolic biomarkers

Novel metabolic biomarkers and technologies offer major opportunities for earlier cancer detection, improved patient stratification and more accurate monitoring of treatment response and disease progression.

Eligible sub-aims include:

• Advancing metabolic imaging approaches to improve sensitivity and specificity in tumour detection and longitudinal monitoring.
• Identifying and/or validating novel biomarkers or biomarker signatures based on tumour-associated metabolic alterations, to enhance cancer diagnosis, patient stratification or disease monitoring.

Aim 2: Intercepting metabolic vulnerabilities to improve precision medicine

Metabolic reprogramming in cancer creates unique dependencies that can be exploited therapeutically. Tumours often develop distinct metabolic signatures, shaped by oncogenic mutations, which drive tumour initiation, progression, therapy resistance, and metastasis. These metabolic adaptations open the door to precision medicine approaches that target defined metabolic vulnerabilities with tailored interventions.

Eligible sub-aims include:

• Identifying key druggable metabolic regulators and signalling networks to personalise therapy and improve clinical outcomes.
• Designing and evaluating innovative interventions, including novel or repurposed therapeutics, that target metabolic vulnerabilities and synergise with existing treatments.
• Implementing advanced and clinically relevant preclinical models that enable rigorous assessment of novel or repurposed therapeutic strategies targeting specific metabolic vulnerabilities.

Please refer to the full call text for more information about what's encouraged, what's excluded, and opportunities for capacity building projects. The ultimate goal is to connect clinicians, academia, and industry to accelerate patient-focused discoveries.

Eligible applicants include:

• Academic research groups (from universities or other higher education or research institutions).
• Clinical/public health sector research groups (from hospitals/public health and/or other health care settings and health organisations).
• Enterprise's research groups (depending on national/regional eligibility rules), with particular emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises.

Consortium Composition

• At least 3 different countries.
• Not more than 2 research groups from the same country.
• Minimum 3 and Maximum of 6 partners. Where the consortium includes a partner from Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Turkiye, the maximum partners can go up to 7.

Mandatory

• At least 1 early-career researcher (ECR) as principal investigator in a consortium, clearly indicated in the proposal.
• At least 1 basic or pre-clinical research team and 1 clinical team.

This page is a summary. For full details on eligibility and application requirements for Maltese entities, please refer to the official and by the Joint Secretariat, and to Xjenza Malta's , such as the University of Malta.