Brno, Czech Republic | 4–5 June 2025

The DISCERN Annual Meeting 2025 brought together over 60 researchers, clinicians, data scientists, and patient advocates to Masaryk University in Brno for two dynamic days of knowledge exchange, partnership building, and bold thinking in cancer research. Funded under the EU Horizon Europe programme (Grant No. 101096888), DISCERN is at the forefront of understanding how the exposome — the totality of environmental exposures — contributes to renal, pancreatic, and colorectal cancers.

The event opened with a high-level Colorectal Cancer Workshop, chaired by Prof. Marc Gunter (Imperial College London), with compelling sessions on the rising burden of early-onset CRC (Isabelle Soerjomataram, IARC), the role of genetic predisposition (Karl Smith-Byrne, Oxford), and novel exposome-driven pathways in CRC aetiology (Paul Brennan, IARC).

The afternoon marked the official start of the Consortium Meeting, with updates and discussions covering cohort building, variant-informed risk factor exploration, and the promise of multi-omic data for causality assessment.

The second day placed the spotlight on Patient and Public Involvement. Digestive Cancers Europe (DiCE), along with partners from IKCC, NIOM, and Pancreatic Cancer Europe, led a session on patient advocacy in DISCERN. The session underscored the responsibility to ensure that findings are communicated beyond policy circles — to patients, healthcare professionals, and caregivers — ensuring the science serves those most impacted.

Scientific sessions continued with:

• Advances in modelling genetic and microenvironmental risk factors in renal cancer
• Multi-omics tools for understanding cancer incidence and mortality
• Innovative approaches to variable selection and causal modelling in risk prediction

From exposome mapping to federated analysis and patient engagement, DISCERN is pushing the boundaries of how we understand cancer causation in Europe. The Annual Meeting in Brno reinforced the project’s interdisciplinary mission: to connect data, disciplines, and human experiences in a way that drives better prevention, earlier detection, and more equitable care across Europe.

As one participant put it: “This isn’t just about data — it’s about lives. DISCERN is where science meets action.”

Author:

Nikola Mihinjač