L2CancerBridge Programme - Collaborative Excellence
L2CancerBridge is a groundbreaking collaborative cancer research programme that bridges two of Europe's leading research institutions: CREATE Health at Lund University, Sweden, and the Swiss Cancer Centre at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The L2CancerBridge programme exemplifies how international partnerships can accelerate cancer research breakthroughs. By combining the expertise and resources of Swedish and Swiss institutions, the program creates a powerful platform for developing innovative cancer therapies that can improve patient outcomes worldwide.
Historic Funding Milestone
In early 2025, L2CancerBridge reached a historic milestone when Lund University received its largest donation since its founding in 1666. Mrs Berta Kamprad's Cancer Foundation donated 420 million SEK over five years, dedicated explicitly to translational cancer research in antibody and cell therapies.
This transformative funding focuses on applied cancer research to improve disease prognosis and quality of life for today's cancer patients. CREATE Health serves as the administrative recipient and operational manager of this funding, with Professors Carl Borrebaeck (Immunotechnology) and Kristian Pietras (Molecular Medicine) as founding members of the programme.
The substantial funding enables CREATE Health to significantly expand its translational cancer research activities by supporting the continued development of established research groups and recruiting promising young principal investigators. Further, the collaborative activities between CREATE Health and the Swiss Cancer Centre at EPFL will be strengthened by facilitating, e.g. researcher exchanges for knowledge transfer.
Research Focus and Strategy
L2CancerBridge concentrates on translational cancer research, the critical bridge between laboratory discoveries and clinical applications. The programme targets explicitly antibody and cell therapies, representing some of the most promising approaches in modern cancer treatment.
The L2CancerBridge research groups develop novel treatment strategies for haematologic malignancies, like lymphomas and leukaemias, and solid tumours, such as malignant melanoma, breast, ovarian, prostate, neurological, bladder, and lung cancer.
Bridging the technological ingenuity of the Lund and Lausanne teams gives us the edge to
- Understand the tumour microenvironment and its immune defences to identify new targets for immunotherapy.
- Develop therapeutic antibodies against the novel targets to be used alone or in the context of cell-based immunotherapy.
- Develop innovative ‘smart’ curative T-cells and other immune cells that are genetically enhanced and personalised to defeat tumour-induced T-cell suppression and circumvent tumour immune escape.
- Extend the benefit of ‘smart’ immune cells through novel combinations and approaches, including gene therapy, amongst others.
- Develop precision diagnostics to discover and characterise malignant tumours, optimise treatment selection, and evaluate treatment effectiveness.
- Test the new technologies and therapeutic concepts in pilot clinical studies using the specialised facilities in Lausanne and Lund.
Program Leadership and Foundation
Founded by Professors Kristian Pietras and Carl Borrebaeck at Lund University alongside Professors Douglas Hanahan and George Coukos at EPFL Lausanne, L2CancerBridge was initiated in 2018 with the vision of advancing translational cancer research through international collaboration. The program initially received generous support from the Mats Paulson Foundation and Cancera Foundation, establishing the foundation for this ambitious cross-border research initiative.