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Semi-natural open habitats in Europe have been shaped by traditional land use practices such as extensive mowing or livestock grazing. However, socio-economic transformations have led to the abandonment of many grassland and heathland areas and conservation management is now required to maintain these biodiverse habitats. Grazing by wild red deer (Cervus elaphus) can be a convenient alternative to laborious mechanical management or livestock grazing. Yet it remains unclear if free-ranging ungulates can counteract shrub growth sufficiently to maintain open habitats—especially with natural predators, i.e. wolves (Canis lupus), recolonizing Europe. To assess red deer effects on shrub regrowth after clearance we installed a cohort of open and fenced plots (17 pairs) in 2016, when wolf presence in our study area (Grafenwöhr military training area, DE) was negligible. When wolf presence had become frequent in 2020, we set up a second cohort (41 paired plots). For both cohorts, the vegetation in the shrub and herb layer was significantly higher in fenced than open plots already after one year. Shrub height increased continuously and dead herbaceous biomass accumulated under red deer exclusion. Consequently, wild red deer can slow down shrub succession in open habitats even under increasing predation pressure. Regardless of wolf presence, a wildlife management that enables red deer to forage in open landscapes could thus reduce the required frequency of conservation management interventions.

This paper describes the journey of a group of six international arts-based researchers who convened in 2019 at the ECQI for a Gamechanger event. The goal was to create a transdisciplinary and transglobal group advocating for the visibility, accessibility, and valuation of Arts-Based Research (ABR). The mission was driven by the desire to contribute to the understanding of underlying beyond-words human intersubjective phenomena and resulting collective behaviors that influence our world but elude more traditional research methods. Conceptualized within an historical and contemporary socio-political context of turbulence, oppression, and inequity, the aspiration was that ABR might transcend the usual rhetoric exposing the trauma and toxicity while enhancing empathic, compassionate, and meaningful social discourse essential to creative reformative social justice. Thus, the Arts-Based Research (ABR) Global Consortium was formed. With the formation of our consortium and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to begin our first research project “Sustaining Life on Earth: Arts-Based Responses to the Lived Experience of COVID-19”, which was initiated in 2020 and completed in 2022. Nineteen individuals volunteered to participate as co-researchers, alongside the six member core team, submitting their arts-based and narrative responses to the project. The core team guiding the project collected and organized the submissions while simultaneously entering into an immersive, iterative, dynamic arts-based and dialogic process with the data and each other. In these immersive processes, we considered a priori themes of emotional impact, social framing, and aesthetic power of the art and narrative data as well as opening to emergent themes. Analysis included narrative and sensorial-based coding, responsive art making, collaborative and individual multi-genre memos, and reflections on all submissions. The final result of the project is an artsbased and performative piece

The impact of current trends in technology, digitalization and mass media on our global culture raises questions regarding the responsibility and ethics of research decisions in contemporary social and health sciences. Embedded in the dominant paradigms, these trends subtly affect our worldviews, our valuation of the human condition, and the nature of socio-political discourse. In such critical post normal times (SARDAR, 2009) radical imagination (HAIVEN & KHASNABISH, 2014) and epistemic activism, embracing non-dominant modes of knowledge production in the social and health sciences, becomes a necessity. Arts-based research (ABR) is resonant with the onto-epistemological perspectives and methodologies necessary to challenge and disrupt current unilateral and hegemonic paradigms underlying decaying societal and geo-political constructs. In this article, we advocate for the development of a global network of ABR scholars and stakeholders invoking a radical imaginative philosophy and arts-based research methodologies as an approach to social activism and epistemological change.

ETMR, an aggressive disease characterised by C19MC alterations, were previously categorised as various histologic diagnoses. The clinical spectrum and impact of conventional multi-modal therapy on this new WHO diagnostic category remains poorly understood as a majority of ~200 cases reported to date lack molecular confirmation. We undertook comprehensive clinico-pathologic studies of a large molecularly confirmed cohort to improve disease recognition and treatment approaches. Amongst 623 CNSPNETs patients enrolled in the RBTC registry, 159 primary ETMRs were confirmed based on a combination of FISH (125), methylation analysis (88), SNP and RNAseq (32) analyses; 91% had C19MC amplification/gains/fusions, 9% lacked C19MC alterations but had global methylation features of ETMR NOS. ETMRs arose in young patients (median age 26 months) predominantly as localized disease (M0-72%, M2-3 -18%) at multiple locations including cerebrum (60%) cerebellum (18%), midline structures (6%); notably 10% were brainstem primaries mimicking DIPG. Uni-and multivariate analyses of clinical and treatment details of curative regimens available for 110 patients identified metastatic disease (p=0.002), brainstem locations(p=0.005), extent of surgery, receipt of multi-modal therapy including high dose chemotherapy and radiation (P<0.001) as significant treatment prognosticators, while C19MC status, age and gender were nonsignificant risk factors. Analyses of events in all patients showed respective EFS at 3 and 12 months of 84%(95%CI:77-91) and 37%(95%CI:20-41) and 4yr OS of 27%(95%CI:18-37) indicating despite intensified therapies ETMR is a rapidly progressive and fatal disease. Our comprehensive data on the largest cohort of molecularly-confirmed ETMRs provides a critical framework to guide current clinical management and development of clinical trials.

Background: The phase I component of a phase I/II study defined the recommended phase II dose and established the tolerability of nab-paclitaxel monotherapy in paediatric patients with recurrent or refractory solid tumours. The activity and safety of nab-paclitaxel monotherapy was further investigated in this phase II study. Patients and methods: Paediatric patients with recurrent or refractory Ewing sarcoma, neuroblastoma or rhabdomyosarcoma received 240 mg/m2 of nab-paclitaxel on days 1, 8 and 15 of each 28-day cycle. The primary end-point was the overall response rate (ORR; complete response [CR] + partial response [PR]). Secondary end-points included duration of response, disease control rate (DCR; CR + PR + stable disease [SD]), progression-free survival, 1-year overall survival, safety and pharmacokinetics. Results: Forty-two patients were enrolled, 14 each with Ewing sarcoma, neuroblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma. The ORRs were 0%, 0% and 7.1% (1 confirmed PR), respectively. The DCRs were 30.8% (4 SD), 7.1% (1 SD) and 7.1% (1 confirmed PR and 0 SD) in the Ewing sarcoma, neuroblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma groups, respectively. The median progression-free survival was 13.0, 7.4 and 5.1 weeks, respectively, and the 1-year overall survival rates were 48%, 25% and 15%, respectively. The most common grade III/4IVadverse events were haematologic (neutropenia [50%] and anaemia [48%]), and grade III/IV peripheral neuropathy occurred in 2 patients (14%) in the rhabdomyosarcoma group. Pharmacokinetics analyses revealed that paclitaxel tissue distribution was both rapid and extensive. Conclusions: In this phase II study, limited activity was observed; however, the safety of nab-paclitaxel in paediatric patients was confirmed. Trial registration: NCT01962103 and EudraCT 2013-000144-26.

Introduction: Data regarding real-world impact on cancer clinical research during COVID-19 are scarce. We analysed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the conduct of paediatric cancer phase I–II trials in Europe through the experience of the Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer (ITCC). Methods: A survey was sent to all ITCC-accredited early-phase clinical trial hospitals including questions about impact on staff activities, recruitment, patient care, supply of investigational products and legal aspects, between 1st March and 30th April 2020. Results: Thirty-one of 53 hospitals from 12 countries participated. Challenges reported included staff constraints (30% drop), reduction in planned monitoring activity (67% drop of site initiation visits and 64% of monitoring visits) and patient recruitment (61% drop compared with that in 2019). The percentage of phase I, phase II trials and molecular platforms closing to recruitment in at least one site was 48.5%, 61.3% and 64.3%, respectively. In addition, 26% of sites had restrictions on performing trial assessments because of local contingency plans. Almost half of the units suffered impact upon pending contracts. Most hospitals (65%) are planning on improving organisational and structural changes. Conclusion: The study reveals a profound disruption of paediatric cancer early-phase clinical research due to the COVID-19 pandemic across Europe. Reported difficulties affected both patient care and monitoring activity. Efforts should be made to reallocate resources to avoid lost opportunities for patients and to allow the continued advancement of oncology research. Identified adaptations to clinical trial procedures may be integrated to increase preparedness of clinical research to futures crises.

Introduction: Data regarding real-world impact on cancer clinical research during COVID-19 are scarce. We analysed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the conduct of paediatric cancer phase I–II trials in Europe through the experience of the Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer (ITCC). Methods: A survey was sent to all ITCC-accredited early-phase clinical trial hospitals including questions about impact on staff activities, recruitment, patient care, supply of investigational products and legal aspects, between 1st March and 30th April 2020. Results: Thirty-one of 53 hospitals from 12 countries participated. Challenges reported included staff constraints (30% drop), reduction in planned monitoring activity (67% drop of site initiation visits and 64% of monitoring visits) and patient recruitment (61% drop compared with that in 2019). The percentage of phase I, phase II trials and molecular platforms closing to recruitment in at least one site was 48.5%, 61.3% and 64.3%, respectively. In addition, 26% of sites had restrictions on performing trial assessments because of local contingency plans. Almost half of the units suffered impact upon pending contracts. Most hospitals (65%) are planning on improving organisational and structural changes. Conclusion: The study reveals a profound disruption of paediatric cancer early-phase clinical research due to the COVID-19 pandemic across Europe. Reported difficulties affected both patient care and monitoring activity. Efforts should be made to reallocate resources to avoid lost opportunities for patients and to allow the continued advancement of oncology research. Identified adaptations to clinical trial procedures may be integrated to increase preparedness of clinical research to futures crises.