The Research Institute Children's Cancer Center Hamburg is a non-profit limited liability company. The sole shareholder is the funding association Fördergemeinschaft Kinderkrebs-Zentrum Hamburg e. V.

Besides donations, competitively accrued third-party funds are the most important financial basis of our research institute. In the past three years alone, 27 third-party projects were acquired and processed, for example from the European Union, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the German Research Foundation, German Cancer Aid, the Wilhelm Sander Foundation or the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation.

With the financing of endowed professorships and earmarked reserves, the funding association ensures the long-term operation of the research institute.

The Research Institute Children's Cancer Center Hamburg is integrated into an excellent research environment through cooperation agreements with the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and with the Leibniz Institute of Virology (LIV). These partnerships enable us to engage in a wide range of scientific collaborations, to share technology platforms, and to achieve a high level of economic efficiency.

The close cooperation of the research institute with the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at the UKE helps to quickly transfer the findings from our laboratories into clinical treatment and to translate problems of everyday clinical practice directly into new research questions.

In addition to interdisciplinary networking on site in Hamburg, the Research Institute Children's Cancer Center Hamburg is in close exchange with national and international research teams. Furthermore, the institute is supported by an internationally constituted Scientific Advisory Board.

The research institute is currently part of an initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the National Decade Against Cancer, which we want to help shape and promote. Our goal is to raise awareness of the issue of childhood cancer among policymakers and the healthcare industry.

Research in molecular and cell biology has made rapid progress in recent years: Today, we researchers have methods at our disposal that were beyond our imagination just ten years ago. We must seize the opportunities this offers for improving cancer treatment for the benefit of our young patients. Our research is characterized by a high degree of flexibility and novel scientific approaches – an essential prerequisite for innovative forms of treatment in the future.

Our institute has state-of-the-art technical laboratory equipment (e.g. Incucyte or Cytek 4 lasers). In addition, through partnerships with the UKE and the Leibniz Institute of Virology (LIV), we also have access to other large-scale equipment, such as next-generation sequencing platforms, Illumina iScan reader or STORM photon microscopy.