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Raúl Méndez, ICREA researcher at IRB Barcelona, coordinates a 5-year project in collaboration with IDIBAPS and the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona
The AECC has also awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to Isabel García Cao to study colon cancer resistance to treatment
This year the Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer (AECC)(Spanish Association against Cancer) is granting 6.7 million euros to fund four cutting-edge research projects. These funds will be presented in an official ceremony to be held in Burgos on 23 September. The recipients include ICREA researcher Rául Méndez, from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), who will coordinate a 5-year project on hepatocellular carcinoma, the main type of liver cancer and the third cause of death by cancer worldwide, with a patient survival rate of less than 10% five years after diagnosis.
Recent years have witnessed an increased in the incidence of liver cancer as a result of the obesity epidemic. In this regard, 75% of obese subjects and 95% of subjects with morbid obesity have non-alcoholic hepatic steatosis (fatty liver), and a high percentage of these patients develop cirrhosis and finally hepatocellular carcinomas.
Headed by Dr. Méndez and in collaboration with Dr. Mercedes Fernández, from the Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), and Dr. Jordi Bruix, from the Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica (FCRB), the team seeks to identify new ways to treat hepatocellular carcinoma.
This basic clinical research project aims to determine the involvement of CPEB proteins in the development and progression of the disease. One of the goals of the project is to identify compounds with the capacity to modulate CPEB activity and thus with potential clinical applications.
Isabel García Cao receives a postdoctoral fellowship from the AECC
In the same ceremony, the AECC will present 8 postdoctoral fellowships worth 135,000€ each to outstanding young researchers, among them Isabel García Cao from IRB Barcelona. Dr. García Cao will focus her study on colon cancer resistance to chemotherapy. The project aims to analyse tumour cell response to genotoxic stress when subjected to various kinds of chemotherapeutic agents combined with inhibitors of key protein kinases, namely p38 MAPK, and ATM. The team will study the efficacy of this combined treatment on tumour cells with distinct genetic profiles.
AECC
The AECC is the social and private entity that devotes most funding to cancer research in Spain. Since 2009, this organisation has allocated 29 million euros to 161 research projects underway in 46 centres around Spain. For more information about the AECC.
About IRB Barcelona
The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) pursues a society free of disease. To this end, it conducts multidisciplinary research of excellence to cure cancer and other diseases linked to ageing. It establishes technology transfer agreements with the pharmaceutical industry and major hospitals to bring research results closer to society, and organises a range of science outreach activities to engage the public in an open dialogue. IRB Barcelona is an international centre that hosts 400 researchers and more than 30 nationalities. Recognised as a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence since 2011, IRB Barcelona is a CERCA centre and member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST).
