Ralph Wirtz

Accelerated development of new anti-cancer compounds with multidisciplinary expert team with strong expertise in pre-clinical and translation into First-In-Human application by taking advantage of molecularly stratified Real World Registry settings across tumor entities. Boost development of your own compounds or take advantage of expert pipeline development partnerships. www.RadioVaxX.com

Development of new fully-automated technologies for analyzing DNA/RNA in blood samples or formalin-fixed tumor tissues Technical and bioinformatics support to identify predictive and prognostic algorithms Custom design as well as technical and clinical trial validation of molecular stratifyers Automated tissue and data analysis for standardized, high-throughput stratification Close collaboration with clinical research organizations to perform stratified trials www.STRATIFYER.com

Identification and validation of prognostic and predictive gene signatures and molecular aberrations in clinical trials Distinction by the breast cancer patient organization "mamazone" for cancer research and design of improved cancer follow-up strategies (2009) Distinction by the University of Bologna for scientific excellence (2009) Science & Innovation Award for "Molecular Test for improved Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer Patients" (2008) Darb-Esfahani S, Wirtz R et al. Estrogen receptor 1 mRNA is a prognostic factor in ovarian carcinoma: determination by kinetic PCR in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue. Endocrine Relat Cancer 2009 Aug 12. Koutras AK, Kalogeras KT, Dimopoulos MA, Wirtz RM, et al. Evaluation of the prognostic and predictive value of HER family mRNA expression in high-risk early breast cancer.Br J Cancer. 2008 Nov 4. Pentheroudakis G, Kalogeras KT, Wirtz RM, et al. Gene expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and microtubule-associated protein Tau in high-risk early breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2008 Jul 31.

Establishing of molecular techniques to analyze clinical routine specimen to enable transfer from "bench to bedside". RNA and DNA analysis from formaline fixed, paraffin embedded tumor tissue samples. Automated multimarker anaylsis based on IHC and FISH in cervical smears and tumor tissues. Establishing of adenoviral transfection systems to identify tumor cells in blood samples.

Peforming own research work (identification of genetic interaction partners in oncogenic signalling pathways, cloning of new genes, transfection studies, mutation and expression analysis, DNA/RNA/protein analysis). Analysis of receptor tyrosine kinase and stem cell activities in cancer cells. Coaching of diploma and Ph.D. students Behrens J, Jerchow BA, Würtele M, Grimm J, Asbrand C, Wirtz R, Kühl M, Wedlich D, Birchmeier W. Functional interaction of an axin homolog, conductin, with beta-catenin, APC, and GSK3beta. Science. 1998 Apr 24;280(5363):596-9.

Investigating interplay between hormones, metabolism and cell growth by establishing of co-culture systems and fast biochemical assays to analyze key enzyme regulation. Brix K, Wirtz R, Herzog V. Paracrine interaction between hepatocytes and macrophages after extrathyroidal proteolysis of thyroglobulin. Hepatology. 1997 Nov;26(5):1232-40.