Prof. Lalith Kumar Shiyam Sundar, LMU Hospital Munich, received the ICPO Research Grant for “AI-driven Advancements in Precision Oncology”

His project is funded by the ICPO Foundation with 100.000 Euros and was selected from
18 high-quality applications from twelve countries

February 17, 2026 – Wiesbaden, Germany. The International Centers for Precision Oncology (ICPO) Foundation today announced the winner of its first AI Research Call for “AI-driven Advancements in Precision Oncology” with a grant funding of 100.000 Euros. “The ambition behind this initiative is to lay the foundations that will enable artificial intelligence to become clinically meaningful, trustworthy, and ultimately beneficial for patient care in Theranostics,” explained Sen h. c. Udo Vetter, Chairman of the ICPO Foundation. In daily clinical practice, medical data is often fragmented and heterogeneous, particularly in Theranostics where imaging, clinical, and treatment data are stored across various systems. “To use digital tools responsibly and effectively in research, the underlying data must first be well curated, structured, and harmonized,” commented Prof. Richard P. Baum, Trustee of the ICPO Foundation and President of the ICPO Academy for Theranostics. Accordingly, the first year of this three-year ICPO initiative is dedicated to building arobust data infrastructure, before addressing more advanced research questions in subsequent years. The selected project is “ARCHE – An AI-driven Curation and Harmonization Engine for Structuring Multimodal Theranostics Data,” led by Prof. Lalith Kumar Shiyam Sundar at the Ludwig Maximilian University Hospital in Munich, Germany.

“With this project, the ICPO Foundation is not only funding research – we are investing in methodology that will shape the future of Precision Oncology and strengthen the ICPO Centers Network worldwide”, stated Odile Jaume, CEO of the ICPO Foundation

"For decades, data curation in AI has often been treated as an afterthought – yet high-quality, structured, and clean data are fundamental for AI success. Researchers routinely spend the majority of their time preparing datasets rather than innovating. Thanks to ICPO’s forward-thinking support, we finally have dedicated resources to elevate autonomous data curation into a science of its own,” said Prof. Lalith Kumar Shiyam Sundar, from the Ludwig Maximilian University Hospital, Munich, Germany, expressing his gratitude for receiving this ICPO AI Research Grant

ICPO received 18 high-quality applications from 12 countries, spanning Africa, North America, Asia, and Europe. All applications were thoroughly reviewed by an international evaluation committee consisting of six experts, both from the ICPO Scientific Advisory Board and from the AI field, thereby combining expertise in nuclear medicine, physics, and artificial intelligence.

The selected project “ARCHE – An AI-driven Curation and Harmonization Engine for Structuring Multimodal Theranostics Data” proposes an AI-native harmonization engine specifically designed for Theranostics data, implemented within a single high-volume clinical center, and developed on a large, fully and readily accessible real-world cohort of more than 1,000 patient datasets, including different radioisotopes. This creates a unique opportunity to move from concept to implementation, and to demonstrate how structured, multimodal data can become a shared asset for the Theranostics community.

The announcement was made at the Theranostics World Congress 2026, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Photos caption: Prof. Lalith Kumar Shiyam Sundar, LMU c received the first AI Research Grant with funding of 100K Euros from the ICPO Foundation

About ICPO Foundation
The International Centers for Precision Oncology Foundation (ICPO) is a non-profit organization established in 2019 under German law by leading international medical practitioners and life sciences entrepreneurs. Recognizing a paradigm shift in cancer care to a personalized approach, the ICPO Foundation is helping to build momentum to scale global patient access by developing an international network of physical diagnostic and therapeutic centers for Precision Oncology based on a model of shared know-how, certified education with the ICPO Academy for Theranostics, and design and process standardization that enables best clinical practice for improved patient outcomes globally. www.icpo.foundation

Learn more about the ICPO Foundation at www.icpo.foundation and the ICPO Academy for Theranostics at www.theranostics.academy

Media contact ICPO Foundation
Susanne Simon,
Head of Communication & Community
Email: susanne.simon@icpo.foundation,
Phone: + 49 172 8666093,
www.icpo.foundation

Attachment

• Prof. Lalith Kumar Shiyam Sundar, LMU Munich received the first AI Research Grant with funding of 100K Euros from the ICPO Foundation