WWTF funds research into precision medicine with a twist
The Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) will fund a collaborative research project between the IMP and St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) to advance precision oncology in childhood cancers, coordinated by IMP Senior Group Leader Johannes Zuber. The researchers aim to identify biomarkers that can guide the use of existing therapies in paediatric cancers, helping to make treatments more precise and effective.
A collaborative project between the IMP and St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) has been awarded funding from the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF). The project, “Functional Identification of Response Biomarkers to Advance Precision Oncology in Childhood Cancers” (FIREBACC), was selected by an international jury as part of the WWTF Life Sciences 2026 call. Johannes Zuber, Senior Group Leader at the IMP, is the project coordinator.
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in children and adolescents, as for many tumours current treatments are not effective enough. Precision medicine usually searches for cancer ‘driver’ mutations that make cancer cells grow and can be matched to targeted drugs. In childhood cancers, however, driver mutations that can be targeted with existing drugs are rare. FIREBACC will address this by taking a radically different route: using the gene scissors CRISPR/Cas9 for large-scale screens, the researchers will systematically identify genes that alter the response to existing drugs. The project will build on pilot studies, in which the team has already identified several mutations that occur in pediatric cancers and make cancer cells much more vulnerable to certain cancer drugs.
FIREBACC will draw from the expertise of the labs of Johannes Zuber and Anna Obenauf at the IMP, as well as Sabine Taschner-Mandl (St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute), to unite specialists from different fields to find drug-sensitising mutations for 96 established cancer drugs. The project brings together complementary technologies across the partner labs. At the IMP, researchers contribute cutting-edge CRISPR screening approaches to map drug responses, as well as novel tumour models. At St. Anna CCRI, the team adds state-of-the-art and innovative diagnostic tools, including single-cell profiling and a newly established image-based drug testing platform. By combining these recent advances in basic and clinical cancer research, the team aims to establish a new class of biomarkers for guiding the use of already available drugs in young cancer patients.
“FIREBACC aims to extend the focus of precision medicine beyond cancer driver mutations, which are often not directly druggable,” Zuber explains. “Instead, we look at mutations that determine how cancer cells respond to existing therapies,” says Sabine Taschner-Mandl, scientific director at St. Anna CCRI. “By building a comprehensive map of these mutation–drug interactions, we can search patient genomes for matching patterns and identify those who are most likely to benefit from specific treatments already available.”
About the contributing research groups
Johannes Zuber is a distinguished expert in functional cancer genetics. His lab has pioneered and successfully applied advanced CRISPR- and RNAi-based screening approaches to discover cancer dependencies and response and resistance mechanisms of established and emerging cancer therapeutics. In recent work, his lab has established a scalable platform for drug modifier screens, which will be applied in FIREBACC.
Zuber studied medicine and completed a clinical residency in oncology. After postdoctoral research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the United States, he established his research group at the IMP in 2011, where he was promoted to Senior Group Leader in 2020.
Anna Obenauf is a leading expert in cancer biology, the development of experimentally tractable in-vivo models, and the study of therapy response and resistance mechanisms in solid cancers. Her lab uses high-throughput CRISPR screening and in-vivo lineage tracing approaches to translate functional insights into clinical biomarker strategies.
Obenauf studied molecular medicine and joined the IMP in 2016 after postdoctoral research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the United States. She is IMP Senior Group Leader since 2022.
Sabine Taschner-Mandl is a renowned expert in translational paediatric cancer research, with a particular focus on high-risk neuroblastoma. She has established cutting-edge platforms for multi-omics diagnostic profiling and image-based drug sensitivity testing, and her laboratory has long-standing expertise in the development of companion biomarkers.
Taschner-Mandl is a molecular biologist who established her own lab at St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) in 2018, following postdoctoral research at the Medical Univery of Vienna and St. Anna CCRI, where she has meanwhile been appointed to scientific director.
About the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF)
The Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) is a major private funder of scientific research in Vienna. Through its competitive calls, WWTF supports high-quality, innovative research projects with the potential for scientific and societal impact. Funding decisions are based on international peer review and the recommendations of expert juries.