# KOODAC (Cancer Grand Challenges team on solid tumours in children)

Source: https://onco.cc/institutions/cgc-koodac/  
OnCo record `cgc-koodac` (Institution). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

An international team, funded in 2024 by Cancer Grand Challenges, that is designing tablets which make cancer cells destroy the faulty proteins driving five childhood cancers, proteins that ordinary drugs have not been able to block.

## Summary

KOODAC was funded in 2024 to take on the solid tumours in children challenge (2023), which asks for therapeutics that target the oncogenic drivers of children's solid tumours. It is co-led by Martin Eilers (University of Würzburg) and Yaël Mossé (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) and brings together ten institutions in Austria, France, Germany, the UK and the US, with Nurix Therapeutics as industry partner. Its targets are ALK, DNAJB1::PRKACA, MYCN, EWSR1::FLI1 and PAX3::FOXO1 or PAX7::FOXO1, covering neuroblastoma, fibrolamellar carcinoma, medulloblastoma, Ewing sarcoma and fusion-positive rhabdomyosarcoma.

The team is developing two kinds of targeted protein degraders, PROTACs and molecular glue degraders, which recruit the cell's ubiquitin-proteasome system to remove the target protein. Using Nurix's DNA-encoded library screening, it reports early candidates against several targets, with recent work on ALK, MYCN, EWSR1::FLI1 and DNAJB1::PRKACA, and aims to take the most promising into first-in-child phase 1 studies. The team also reports that MYC binds newly made RNA and limits RNA-DNA hybrids that would otherwise trigger innate immune signals, a way tumours may hide from the immune system.

## Fields

- Kind: Institution
- Last checked: 2026-11-04
- Also known as: KOODAC; Team KOODAC
- Tags: research-funding
- City: Würzburg, DE
- Type: consortium
- Website: https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/koodac

## Notes

- Placed at Würzburg, the institution of the first-named co-lead; the University of Würzburg is linked through its comprehensive cancer centre record.
- No degrader from KOODAC had entered a clinical trial in the page's account; none is claimed.
- Martin Eilers has no person record and is named but not linked; fibrolamellar carcinoma has no cancer record.

## Sources

- Cancer Grand Challenges: KOODAC: https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/koodac

## Connected records

- cancers: [Childhood cancers (all types)](https://onco.cc/cancers/childhood-cancers/), [Ewing sarcoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/ewing-sarcoma/), [Medulloblastoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/medulloblastoma/), [Neuroblastoma (paediatric)](https://onco.cc/cancers/neuroblastoma/), [Rhabdomyosarcoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/rhabdomyosarcoma/)
- technologies: [Molecular glue discovery platforms](https://onco.cc/technologies/molecular-glue-platforms/), [PROTACs & molecular glues (targeted protein degradation)](https://onco.cc/technologies/protac-degrader/)
- companies: [Nurix Therapeutics](https://onco.cc/companies/nurix/)
- institutions: [Cancer Grand Challenges](https://onco.cc/institutions/cancer-grand-challenges/), [Children's Hospital of Philadelphia](https://onco.cc/institutions/chop/), [Comprehensive Cancer Center Mainfranken, University Hospital Würzburg](https://onco.cc/institutions/ccc-wuerzburg/)
- people: [Yael P. Mossé](https://onco.cc/people/yael-mosse/)
- bottlenecks: [Rare and paediatric cancers without markets](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-rare-cancers/), [The undruggable drivers](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-undruggable-targets/)

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