Joining forces to create new innovative solutions – World Cancer Day 2023

Picture: UICC website

The 2023 World Cancer Day continues the campaign to “Close the care gap”. This year the focus is on uniting our voices and joining forces to work together to achieve our goals, and on remembering to celebrate the big and small accomplishments in cancer care and research.

Innovation through international collaboration

Cancer affects lives everywhere on the planet, regardless of wealth or socioeconomic status, or whether you live in a big city or deep in the countryside. Cancer also affects lives regardless of nationality or ethnicity, which is why international collaboration in cancer research is so important. 

International collaboration brings with it extremely valuable expertise and new ideas. It also has several practical advantages. 

For example for us, gaining access to a diverse set of samples from people of different ethnicities is essential in ensuring our methods work for everyone. Because of Finland’s small size and relatively homogenous population, achieving this has only been possible with the help of our clinical and scientific collaborators. The prevalence of different cancers also varies around the world, which is why comprehensive cancer studies require international collaboration.  

Joining forces across borders

We at Aqsens Health are fortunate to have both Finnish and international research collaborations that support each other. 

For example, our BIOURICA collaboration with the Turku University Hospital TYKS is a collaborative metastatic cancer study that focuses on developing Aqsens’ E-TRF method and biosensors to detect solid-tumour cancers from urine samples. 

The research collaboration will give us an excellent starting point for the expansion of the project to China, where we work together with local research partners. The data from BIOURICA will help us to optimize the methodology for a larger scale project and give us the opportunity to move to the clinical trial phase with our first tests. 

Hopefully in the future we can expand our research to include, for example, lung cancer as well. 

Small actions can have a big impact

Although researchers and large institutions play a big part in improving cancer care and diagnostics, they are not the only ones who can make an impact. 

Individuals can also help in closing the care gap. Even small actions like raising awareness on social media or making a donation to a cancer research organization can have an impact.  

Paying attention to your own cancer risk, learning how you can reduce it through lifestyle choices, and talking about these issues with your friends and family are concrete things you can do in your own life to make a difference.

When we work together our small accomplishments grow into bigger accomplishments that benefit a larger group of people. And hopefully the positive impact we at Aqsens Health create will also expand beyond the Finnish borders. 

Learn more about this year’s World Cancer Day campaign here, and see how you can take part!