20 Dec 2024
For the third time, the Bavarian Center for Cancer Research (BZKF) is supporting outstanding scientists at the six Bavarian university hospitals.
Dr. Philipp Keyl has received a Young Scientist Fellowship 2025 from the Bavarian Center for Cancer Research | © LMU Klinikum
The funding, totalling 600,000 euros, went to six young talents, including Dr. Philipp Keyl from LMU Klinikum München. The clinical research projects are intended to help advance the diagnosis and treatment of cancer in Bavaria. The overriding aim is to accelerate the transfer of new targeted procedures from the laboratory to the clinic.
Six scientists from the BZKF locations have received funding of 100,000 euros each from 2025 for their research projects. The scholarship holders were honored in a virtual ceremony on November 18, 2024. Prof. Dr. Andreas Mackensen, Director of the BZKF, emphasizes the importance of projects that directly benefit patients and encourages young scientists to actively support and help shape the established BZKF research groups.
Dr. Philipp Keyl is awarded for his research at the Institute of Pathology at the LMU Hospital Munich on the development of explainable AI methods to support diagnostics and therapy in personalized cancer medicine. "The development of personalized therapy strategies based on individual patient risk continues to be a major challenge in oncological treatment," says Dr. Philipp Keyl. "Advances in data analysis and machine learning enable predictions of side effects and therapy outcomes that could support patient treatment."
Although initial studies have shown promising results from such approaches, the extensive routine data has not yet been used in a structured way for clinical decision-making. The aim of the project is therefore to build up a comprehensive clinical-pathological data set and use it for AI-supported evaluation in order to lay the foundation for data-supported decision-making in cancer treatment. In the long term, the pilot project is intended to form the basis for translational projects within the BZKF network with the aim of future clinical studies.
With the BZKF Young Scientist Fellowship Program, the BZKF supports the best physicians and life scientists - (Advanced) Medical Scientist, Clinician Scientist or Clinical Trialist - in the field of cancer research in Bavaria and thus provides both the necessary funds and the freedom for successful cancer research at the six Bavarian university hospitals.
Further information on the research projects can be found at: https://bzkf.de/bzkf-fellowship/