Sarcomas are rare malignant tumors of mesenchymal origin and primarily occur in children, adolescents and young adults. With multimodal treatment concepts survival has significantly improved and is now in the range of 60–70 %. Following relapse or metastasis, however, the prognosis still is poor as is also the case for patients presenting with primary disseminated disease. TranSaR-Net aims to develop novel treatment strategies overcoming tumor cell resistance directed against novel targets. To achieve this goal the German pediatric, adolescent and adult sarcoma research groups have formed a collaborative network linking the nationwide and European trial groups with access to over 90 % of all pediatric and adolescent sarcoma patients and a large number of adult sarcoma patients to basic and translational sarcoma research groups. Within TranSaRNet a registry for patients at relapse is established as target cohort for innovative treatment strategies as well as a biomaterial banking network in order to facilitate the availability of tumor and other biomaterial for basic and translational research. A joint bioinformatics platform will integrate existing array data, to standardize laboratory and evaluation procedures and for modeling new theoretical concepts in a joint effort. Within the basic and translational research work packages, the sarcoma research groups in Germany have coordinated their research activities in a joint effort. The basic research work package (WP1) includes projects on genomic (WP1.1) and epigenetic (WP1.2) tumor characterization as well as identification of the tumor initiating cell (WP1.3) and resistance mechanisms (WP1.3 und 1.4), and the identification of new targets in apoptotic pathways (WP1.4, 2.4) and tumor-induced angiogenesis (WP1.5). The translational research work package (WP2) is focused on innovative immunological treatment strategies including sarcoma specific T-cells (WP2.1), dendritic cells (WP2.2), NK- cells (WP2.4) and tumor imaging (WP2.3). A brief overview of the projects will be provided.
