H. LEE MOFFITT CANCER CENTER AND RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC

Their core work

Moffitt Cancer Center is a dedicated, NCI-designated comprehensive cancer research institute based in Tampa, Florida — one of the few cancer centers in the US whose entire mission is cancer research and treatment. In the H2020 context, they participated as a non-European third party in MSCA staff exchange and fellowship schemes, hosting EU researchers and contributing domain expertise in mathematical oncology and translational cancer biology. Their H2020 footprint spans two distinct but connected research lines: applying evolutionary game theory to model how cancer cells compete and cooperate, and investigating resistance mechanisms to PARP inhibitor drugs in breast and ovarian cancer. For European consortia, they bring rare access to a major US clinical cancer institution with deep infrastructure for both computational and wet-lab cancer research.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the first project (2016–2019), Moffitt's contribution was firmly theoretical — evolutionary game theory, graph-structured populations, foraging games, and algorithmic modelling of dynamic processes, with cancer as the applied domain. By the second project (2020–2023), the focus shifted decisively toward translational biology: specific drug classes (PARP inhibitors), specific cancer types (breast and ovarian), and a named molecular target (PARP1). This is a clear trajectory from abstract modelling toward clinically grounded drug resistance research — a pattern consistent with a research centre maturing its computational methods into therapeutic hypotheses.

Moffitt appears to be translating mathematical oncology foundations into targeted drug resistance research, suggesting future collaboration opportunities at the intersection of computational modelling and precision oncology.

How they like to work

Moffitt has participated exclusively as a third party in MSCA schemes, meaning they have never led an EU project and likely serve as a host institution or knowledge provider for visiting researchers rather than as a full consortium member. With only two projects and 11 distinct partners, their EU network is small but geographically spread. This pattern is typical of major non-European research centres that engage with EU programmes primarily to attract incoming fellows or participate in staff exchanges rather than to drive project leadership.

Moffitt has collaborated with 11 unique partners across 7 countries, a modest but internationally diverse network for an institution with only 2 projects. As a US-based third party, their EU connections are almost certainly anchored in European academic cancer research groups and mathematical biology labs that sought their clinical and computational resources.

What sets them apart

Moffitt is one of only a handful of standalone, NCI-designated cancer centres in the US — meaning cancer is not a department within a university, it is the entire institution. For a European consortium, this makes them a rare non-European partner who can bridge computational oncology theory with direct access to clinical cancer data, biobanks, and translational research infrastructure at scale. Their specific combination of evolutionary game theory expertise and PARP inhibitor resistance biology is unusual even among cancer centres and positions them as a specialist node for precision oncology consortia.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FourCmodelling
  An intellectually ambitious project that applied evolutionary game theory — a framework from ecology and economics — to model cancer cell competition, making Moffitt an early mover in the mathematical oncology space within EU-funded research.
• PARPinhibit
  Directly targets one of the most clinically relevant resistance problems in oncology — PARP inhibitor failure in BRCA-mutated breast and ovarian cancers — positioning Moffitt at the junction of systems biology and drug development.