Mid-term evaluation of the support to strengthened bilateral relations under the EEA and Norway Grants

Through the EEA Grants and Norway Grants, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein aim to reduce economic and social disparities and strengthen cooperation with 16 countries in Central and Southern Europe. A mid-term evaluation of the current EEA and Norway Grants 2009-14 was conducted by COWI during the second half of 2015 and early 2016 at the request of the Financial Mechanism Office, EEA and Norway Grants. The aim of the mid-term evaluation is to assess to what extent and in which way the EEA and Norway Grants contribute towards strengthening bilateral relations between donor and beneficiary states. The evaluation covers four out of the ten priority sectors of the EEA and Norway Grants and five of the 16 beneficiary countries (Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia), representing 19.4% of the allocated total of EUR 1.8 billion

Clonal analyses of refractory testicular germ cell tumors.

Testicular germ cell tumors (TGCTs) are unique amongst solid tumors in terms of the high cure rates using chemotherapy for metastatic disease. Nevertheless, TGCTs still kill approximately 400 men per year, at a median age of 30 years, in the United States. This young age of mortality dramatically amplifies the impact of these deaths for the patients and their often young families. Furthermore the high cure rate makes it difficult to conduct further clinical trials of non curable disease. TGCTs are characterized by a marked aneuploidy and the presence of gain of chromosomal region 12p. Genomic testing may offer the ability to identify potentially lethal TGCTs at the time of initial diagnosis. However sequencing based studies have shown a paucity of somatic mutations in TGCT genomes including those that drive refractory disease. Furthermore these studies may be limited by genetic heterogeneity in primary tumors and the evolution of sub populations during disease progression. Herein we applied a systematic approach combining DNA content flow cytometry, whole genome copy number and whole exome sequence analyses to interrogate tumor heterogeneity in primary and metastatic refractory TGCTs. We identified both known and novel somatic copy number aberrations (12p, MDM2, and RHBDD1) and mutations (XRCC2, PIK3CA, RITA1) including candidate markers for platinum resistance that were present in a primary tumor of mixed histology and that remained after tandem autologous stem cell transplant