01 October 2025
The Scientific Advisory Council keeps a close watch
“These studies are essential if we are to discover what does work.”
Careful, critical and objective: the Scientific Advisory Council rigorously assesses every application for Support Casper funding, while keeping the search for an effective pancreatic cancer treatment firmly in sight. A friend of Casper van Eijck knew Professor Ada Kruisbeek through the scientific community and suggested contacting her. Ada has chaired the council for three years. She explains: “As the foundation began receiving larger donations, it became even more important to manage them responsibly. Donors rightly want to know how and why their money is spent. Assessing research proposals requires independent experts who can recognise promising science and identify work that is less likely to succeed. I brought together experienced professors who, like me, volunteer their scientific expertise. Standard treatments remain inadequate for pancreatic cancer, so we focus on new approaches and opportunities, particularly virotherapy and immunotherapy. As a relatively small fund, Support Casper must remain focused. Early-stage research can carry more uncertainty, but it is also where potential breakthroughs begin.”
Best possible results
The council's four members review every application together. Ada continues: “It is an important responsibility and one we approach with enthusiasm. We receive fascinating proposals with original ideas. We assess their originality, rationale and logic, the evidence in the scientific literature, whether the study is clearly designed and whether it can be delivered within a reasonable budget. We are demanding, but open to possibility. We sometimes support experimental work that would struggle to secure funding from larger organisations, because finding something genuinely new inevitably means accepting calculated risks. We also monitor studies after funding them. The council acts as a mentor as well as an adviser, helping researchers strengthen proposals and choose the most meaningful direction. Annual progress reports allow us to recommend changes or, where progress is insufficient, stop a study. These choices help achieve the strongest possible results.”
The future lies in combination therapies
Support Casper currently funds several promising projects. Ada explains that the research is closely aligned with international developments in pancreatic cancer treatment. Combination therapies appear particularly important. Dendritic cell therapy combined with antibodies targeting the CD40 protein, which helps activate the immune system, has shown encouraging results in patients with metastatic disease. Research into oncolytic viruses is also advancing: Newcastle disease virus studies have reached the stage of testing in mouse models, helping to build the evidence regulators require before a clinical trial can begin. Other projects remain at the laboratory stage but may ultimately improve the effectiveness of viro-immunotherapy and immunotherapy. That shared aim remains at the heart of every funding decision.