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Elena Ioana Braicu is a senior gynecologist at the Department for Gynecology Campus Vrchow, Charité Medical University Berlin. She is leading the translational research within this department, and coordinating the Tumor Bank for Ovarian Cancer network (www.toc-network.de).

She qualified in medicine in 2003 from “Iuliu Hatieganu” Medical University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She was research fellow at Max Delbrück Research center Berlin in 2003 and 2004, than at the Charité from 2005 and 2006 and at the University of Basel in 2008. Since 2009 she is working at the European Competence Center for Ovarian Cancer at the Charité Medical University.

She is representing the translational group of NOGGO, north eastern German society for gynecological oncology within ENGOT. She is a founding EUTROC member and is leading the working group for biobanking. She is also consultant for pediatric gynecology at the Charité Medical University.

Dr. Braicu participated in several European projects, like OVCAD (www.ovcad.eu) and OCTIPS (www.octips.eu). She is work package leader for biobanking and data repository in the Fp7 European Phase I/II clinical study, Gannet53 (www.gannet53.eu).

She is member in several national and international study groups (e.g. AGO, NOGGO, TOC, ENGOT, EUTROC, GCIG). She is member of the German Foundation of Ovarian Cancer.

Furthermore she is participating in several Phase I to Phase III clinical study as sub-investigator. She is the vice-coordinator of the clinical trial study center at the Charité Medical University.

Since 2013, she is a fellow of the clinical scientist program of the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Berlin Institute of Health.

Her main interests are prevention and diagnostic of pelvic tumors in general and high risk population. She is focusing also in the discovery of predictive biomarkers for clinical outcome in ovarian cancer patients.

EUTROC (European Translational Research network in Ovarian Cancer) is a European cancer network addressing the fragmentation currently hindering translational research for cutting edge therapies in ovarian cancer.

It will strengthen European excellence in the diagnosis and treatment of OC.

The need to bring promising drug candidates and treatments into clinical settings is currently delayed by the lack of standardised protocols for preclinical animal studies, lack of suitable ovarian cancer models, lack of validated predictive biomarker diagnostics, and integrated appropriate management of translational research partners (including pharma and biotech companies).

Developing effective diagnostic and treatment strategies require structured joint efforts of experts on tumor immunology, epigenetics, pathology, bioinformatics, drug development and delivery, trial development, clinical oncology and gynecological oncology.

Leading European researchers and clinicians together with the pharmaceutical industry and biotech companies will focus on preclinical and clinical studies in ovarian cancer. Therefore new targets will be identified, validated and translated to new drugs and brought to clinical practice. Standardisation and harmonisation of laboratory practices and good clinical practice procedures will BE performed within the consortium.

The consortium combines expertise in clinical as well as preclinical research. Involved researchers are coordinating a number of investigator-initiated Phase I, II trials.The Network will build a platform for research and strong educational programs for the next generation of experts aimed at developing individualised patients benefit.