Unidad de Investigación

• Professionals from Navarrabiomed and the University Hospital of Navarra have participated in this multicentre project led by the Cima of the University of Navarra

The Department of Economic and Business Development has subsidized, through the call for Grants for Strategic R&D Projects for the period 2020-2022, the Linterna project, which seeks to advance immunotherapy techniques to fight cancer. Specifically, the project has managed to identify a biomarker that may be effective in stopping the progression of lung cancer. In addition, genomic analysis techniques have been used in subjects with tobacco-induced lung cancer under this project. This has allowed both to advance in the identification and to develop new therapeutic approaches. 

The main objective of the Linterna project (Leadership and INnovation in Cancer immunoTHErapy from NAvarra) is to bring together the work of different institutions that are developing immunotherapy strategies to fight cancer. This technique is based on enhancing the body's own defences versus, for example, techniques that are based on supplying chemicals outside the body.

The whole development has been carried out by a consortium led by the Cima - University of Navarra and in which  University Hospital of Navarra (Medical Oncology Service), the University of Navarra Clinic, Navarrabiomed (Units of Oncoimmunology and of Translational Medical Oncology), ADItech and the pharmaceutical company Medibiopharma have also participated.

During the development of the project, non-cellular markers have been searched for in plasma samples from patients. For this, high-performance analytical techniques have been used. Thanks to this work, fractalkine has been identified, which is a small protein that helps control the growth and activity of other cells, as a biomarker of response to immunotherapy. This discovery will make it possible to develop new, more effective treatments by combining this protein with current therapies.
 

• See project video (spanish)

The European network APTITUDE - Acting for Trans-Pyrenees Prevention of Dependency in Seniors – is gathering in Pamplona on Wednesday, 3 July for a scientific seminar that is expected to draw more than 200 experts in active ageing and frailty. The seminar will take place at the Tres Reyes Hotel in Pamplona, starting at 8.15am. In addition, there will be side workshops organised with the Navarra Red Cross for the general public, at Rincón de la Aduana and Paseo del Doctor Arazuri, starting at 10am.

These events were introduced this morning at the biomedical research centre Navarrabiomed, the network’s leading institution in Navarra, along with the Public University of Navarre (UPNA), the Navarra Hospital Complex (CHN) and the Navarra Red Cross. At the press conference were Nicolás Martínez Velilla, APTITUDE Coordinator in Navarra and Head of the Geriatrics Unit at CHN, Juan José San Martín Baquedano, Coordinator of the Navarra Red Cross, and Jorge Marín Vidondo, Project Manager at Navarrabiomed.

Martínez Velilla said the seminar would be the third APTITUDE meeting – and the first to take place in Pamplona. It will gather primary health care professionals and representatives of hospitals and research centres, universities, nursing homes and businesses from Occitanie in France, Catalonia and Navarra in Spain, and Andorra.
At the seminar, experts will discuss the concept of intrinsic capacity in older individuals – that is, the set of physical and mental skills an individual can apply at any given moment, plus the functional capacity, which is the way in which an individual relates to and interacts with the environment – proposed by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Also, they will talk about the multi-component training offered by the project, targeted at health and social care practitioners working with frail seniors, so that they can prescribe the adequate physical activity routines, make cognitive stimulation interventions, give healthy diet guidelines, make psycho-social interventions, etc.

Keynote speakers include Norman Lazarus and Stephen Harridge, from King’s College London, who have broad experience in physical activity, anti-ageing and muscle deterioration in geriatric care and other sectors, like aerospace, where they have worked with NASA.

Open workshops

On Wednesday, between 10am and 2pm, there will be open workshops at Rincón de la Aduana and Paseo del Doctor Arazuri, Pamplona. Under the title ‘Active, healthy seniors/Tailerrak: Adineko aktibo eta osasuntsuak’, they are targeted at people over 65, but they can also be of interest to caretakers, relatives or volunteers. The workshops are free and no prior registration is required.

In addition, there will be APTITUDE-Red Cross Tents, hosting functional assessment, cognitive stimulation and adapted leisure activities for the elderly, giving information about support devices and healthy habits, and giving out supplementary material with workout routines.

Ageing and functional decline

According to INE data from 2018, the population of Navarra amounts to 647,219 people, 19.5 per cent are 65 or above. The region has one of the longest life expectancies in Europe: 86.6 years for women and 81 years for men. However, the quality of life varies: whereas women tend to live longer lives, they become more dependent than men after 65.

According to the World Health Organisation, the main causes of mild or severe disability in old age are sensory impairment, back or neck pain, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), depression, falls, diabetes mellitus, dementia and osteoarthritis. Moreover, more than 50 per cent of the elderly suffer from a combination of illnesses and take three to five medicines together.

Initiatives like APTITUDE advocate a change of paradigm in elderly care. Caretakers should face the challenge of setting illness aside to focus on functional capacity and its maintenance or improvement. APTITUDE promotes healthy habits, physical activity and cross-generational, adapted leisure both in urban centres and rural environments, in an effort to combat loneliness, depopulation in rural areas and the stereotypes associated with ageing.

About APTITUDE

APTITUDE was established in 2018 as a three-year network to foster cross-border cooperation in four regions (Occitanie, Catalonia, Navarra and Andorra) by building its own local networks with a total budget of 2 million Euro.
The APTITUDE project, which includes the APTITUDE network in Navarra, gets 65 per cent of its funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through the Interreg V-A Spain-France-Andorra (POCTEFA) cooperation programme, aimed at the development of cross-border economic, social and environmental action by means of joint strategies to promote sustainable territorial development.

APTITUDE partners:

Gérontopôle - Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Toulouse
Fundació Salut i Envelliment - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Servei Andorrà d’Atenció Sanitària
Complejo Hospitalario de Navarra (CHN) - Navarrabiomed

More information: www.aptitude-net.com

Photo: From left to right: Jorge Marín (Navarrabiomed), Nicolás Martínez (CHN-Navarrabiomed) and Juan José San Martín (Navarra Red Cross).

Professionals at the Navarra Hospital Complex (CHN) from the Public University of Navarra (UPNA) and Navarrabiomed are participating in the establishment of a European network for preventing old-age dependency and promoting active ageing. Hospitals and research centres from France, Spain (Navarra and Catalonia) and Andorra are part of this project, named APTITUDE (Acting for Trans-Pyrenees Prevention of Dependency in Seniors). As announced today, the network in Navarra is being coordinated by Navarrabiomed-Miguel Servet Foundation.

The three-year cross-border project will develop local networks in France, Navarra, Catalonia and Andorra. The project has been assigned a 2-million-Euro budget, with 1 million going to Spain (and 400,000 to Navarra). 65 per cent of the funds are being contributed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg V-A Spain programme.

Through training programmes, awareness-raising activities and scientific evidence, the project is aimed at improving the quality of life of elderly people, encouraging the adoption of healthy habits and reducing the loss of functional autonomy, as explained by Antonio Merino Díaz de Cerio, CHN Managing Director, and Nicolás Martínez Velilla, Head of the Geriatrics Department, researcher at the Geriatrics Unit in Navarrabiomed and leader of APTITUDE in Navarra. In the words of Martínez Velilla, ‘the primary goal of the network is to prevent old-age dependency by trying to mitigate frailty in the elderly population.’

Antonio Merino stressed the importance of this type of European projects where protocols, good practices and procedures are shared for the benefit of all the participating institutions and society at large.

Specific actions by APTITUDE Navarra

Álvaro Casas Herrero, geriatrician at CHN and President of the Spanish Geriatrics Society, and Maite Soria Sarnago, Nursing Director at CHN, announced the actions to be undertaken in our community in the forthcoming months.

On Tuesday, 20 November, the project will be presented at a talk in the function room of the School of Medical Sciences, titled ‘Active and healthy seniors: Keys for adopting healthy habits’. The talk will start at 4pm and finish at 6.30pm. Admission is free, but there will be a limited number of seats available. It will also be streamed on the Navarrabiomed YouTube channel.

At the event, the leaders of the project will talk about healthy habits and good practices for improving the quality of life of old people. The President of Club Atlético Osasuna, Luis Sabalza Iriarte, will talk about ‘Working beyond retirement age’. He will share experiences from his career in the Club.

In addition, three strategic actions will take place in the upcoming months in Navarra. Firstly, a cross-border record will be established of people aged 65 and over who are interested in getting information or taking part in gerontechnology and clinical research programmes.

Simultaneously, Clinical and Innovation Research Travelling Teams will be established where professionals specialising in various medical fields will transfer clinical and research practice to urban and rural areas, thus ensuring broader penetration and larger participation for the population. The teams will be made of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.

Also, a database will be created with data provided voluntarily by frail old people and old adults with memory disorders, which will be used to design research projects involving all the centres participating in the project.

Lastly, the members of the project will participate in the validation of a new concept, ‘intrinsic capacity’, as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which might be used in the clinical assessment of old people.

Recently published studies

The actions framed within the project are in line with the conclusions drawn in a study published recently in JAMA Internal Medicine, the peer-reviewed medical journal of the American Medical Association.

Professor Mikel Izquierdo Redín, Director of the Department of Medical Sciences at UPNA and senior researcher from the Physical Exercise and Frailty Research Unit at Navarrabiomed, presented a study that shows that a tailored physical activity plan for in-patients aged 75 or older reduces functional decline. The clinical trial consisted in a three-year follow-up of 370 patients in the Geriatrics Service of CHN.

The study reveals that preadmission health and functional status can indicate the risk of functional decline associated with hospitalisation. This clinical sign might be negatively affected by bed rest during hospitalisation.

Simultaneously, the team is participating in the DIABFRAIL LATAM European project, funded by the European Commission in the context of the Horizon 2020 European research project. DIABFRAIL LATAM focuses on pre-frail and frail old people with diabetes in Latin America. At present, 40 per cent of people aged 65 and older are affected by diabetes.

The project’s goal is to implement a treatment model in Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Argentina, consisting of physical exercise, education and a nutrition plan, plus blood sugar level and blood pressure goals adjusted to old adults with diabetes, who are particularly vulnerable as a result of their frailty. More than 1000 pre-frail and frail old people with type 2 diabetes are taking part in the clinical trial.

www.aptitude-net.com / aptitude@navarra.es

• Four Catalan institutions are also participating in this project to develop molecules with coronavirus-neutralizing properties

The Supera COVID-19 Fund launched by Banco Santander through Santander Universities, in collaboration with Crue Spanish Universities and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has granted €160,000 in funding to a research project on COVID-19 designed by a consortium made up of Navarrabiomed researchers and four Catalan institutions coordinated by the Universidad Pública de Navarra (UPNA). This project seeks to develop molecules with SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing properties for the treatment of patients requiring hospitalization and clinical supervision due to the infection’s severity.

These molecules are based on peptides specific to the ACE2 receptor that can reduce or halt the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to cause infection. “These molecules reproduce the human receptor region the virus attaches to,” explained project leader Jacinto López Sagaseta, from the Protein Crystallography Unit at the Navarrabiomed Biomedical Research Center. “We are trying to create molecules from this region that have a greater capacity to bind to the viral particle, which would hinder the virus’s ability to attach to the natural receptor and thus slow down infection.” According to López, these molecules may “help chemists design drugs that can mitigate the process and speed of infection and thereby facilitate patients’ clinical recovery”.

In order to implement the 12-month project, a consortium was set up of researchers from different disciplines, including chemical synthesis, protein engineering, structural analysis and cell biology, as well as specialists in the conditions of biosafety level three (BSL3, for laboratories, on a scale of one to four), to test the potential of these molecules. Specifically, besides Navarrabiomed and the UPNA, four Barcelona research institutions are also participating in the project: IRB Barcelona (Institute for Research in Biomedicine), IQAC-CSIC (Institute for Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia), CIBER-BBN (Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine Subject Area of the CIBER Biomedical Research Center), and IRTA (Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology). Besides Jacinto López Sagaseta, other Navarrabiomed researchers taking part in this research project include Gilda Dichiara Rodríguez, Elena Erausquin Arrondo and Ane Ochoa Echevarría, who are members of the Protein Crystallography Unit.
The consortium members hope that “the availability of molecules with a strong inhibitory effect will significantly mitigate the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic due to the persistence of current and/or future SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks, as well as outbreaks of other potentially harmful coronaviruses with similar entry routes,” said López.

€8.5 million fund

The €8.5 million Supera COVID-19 Fund has been earmarked for projects of different organizations that are based on the fund’s three-pronged strategic approach against COVID-19: research on the virus and its prevention, research on its social impact, and strengthening universities’ technological capacity and reducing the digital divide. A total of 700 grant applications were submitted, of which 35 were selected and received funding to the tune of €5 million to carry out applied research against the virus. Nearly €1 million was also distributed to twelve projects on the social impact of the virus. Finally, €2.5 million will be allocated to supply young university students in unfavorable socioeconomic situations throughout Spain with nearly 5,000 computers and 15,000 Internet connectivity solutions and webcams.

• The Government of Navarre provided €1.1 million in funding for eight research projects and has now added two more Navarre initiatives to the list of recipients of funding from the Carlos III Health Institute

María Chivite, the President of the Government of Navarre, recognized “the good work” being done at research centers and institutes in the Region of Navarre to find alternatives that help alleviate the effects of COVID-19. She spoke in the context of a meeting she attended this morning with ten researchers in charge of their own publicly funded studies on this disease, which has caused 515 deaths in Navarre and more than 27,000 in all of Spain.

The meeting was also attended by Santos Induráin, the Minister of Health, and Juan Cruz Cigudosa, the Minister of University, Innovation and Digital Transformation, and provided a firsthand opportunity to learn about the research purpose of the projects that have received grants from the Navarre COVI+D Fund. Created by the Government of Navarre to promote research on this topic, the fund paid out €1.1 million in May to eight projects that had received a favorable assessment from the Carlos III Health Institute. The Carlos III Health Institute has also provided direct funding of €232,000 for two other Navarre research projects.

Chivite took advantage of the forum to remind the participants of the Government of Navarre’s commitment to innovation and research “as a model of economic and social development,” not just through these grants, but also by means of the R&D&i Emergency Plan, presented last week, and the Reactivate Navarre Plan / Nafarroa Suspertu 2020-2023. The Government is also committed to improving technological infrastructure and promoting supra-regional cooperation. “We want Navarre to lead the way in biomedicine because we have the talent and skills to do just that. It’s one of the strategic areas we’re working on. We have to be able to transfer knowledge and research to favor industrial and technological development,” she said, before expressing her confidence that Navarre will become “a key stop on the R&D&i map.”

Chivite confirmed that the goal of the Government of Navarre is “to keep increasing investment and setting up strong pillars for the model of growth.” Navarre will thus be prepared for future challenges of the likes of COVID-19.

Chivite informed the researchers of the public support of their research work, though “people are aware of the pressure you’re under when you’re studying this coronavirus, because of the high expectations about finding a vaccine, treatments and other aspects that could alleviate the effects of a virus that has had a major impact on our society.” She asked for respect “for the time frames, rigor and meticulousness” of the researcher’s work, and also expressed hope that this work would promote “true and instructive information” that avoids fake news and disinformation in society as a whole.
 

Ten projects

In addition to President Chivite, the meeting was attended by Rosario Martínez, the Director General for Innovation. Also attending were the researchers from the ten projects that received public funding: Luis Martínez de Morentin, Fermín Mallor Giménez, Borja Sáez Ochoa, Natalia Ramírez Huerto, Jacinto López Sagaseta, Pablo Sarobe Ugarriza, Patricia Fanlo Mateo, David Escors Murugarren, Jesús Castilla Catalán and Leyre Ruete Ibarrola, who attended in representation of Beatriz Lacruz Escalada. They were joined by the heads of the different research centers where the projects are being carried out. This group included María Rosario Luquin, the Scientific Director of  the Navarre Health Research Institute (IdiSNA), Claudio Fernández, the Director of the Lurederra Foundation, and Íñigo Lasa Uzcudun, the Director of Navarrabiomed.

The directors of the ten research projects presented their lines of research, which include the study of possible vaccines, the use of specific drugs, resource management, the development of preventive measures and products, and the analysis of incidence bearing in mind sociodemographic characteristics and other conditioning factors.

The Government of Navarre aims to promote Navarre innovation and national prominence through the COVI+D Fund grants. But the goal is also to attract scientific talent, given the fact that these grants include staff payroll expenses.

High-cholesterol levels, or hypercholesterolemia, affects nearly 1500-2500 people in Navarra, and less than 20 per cent of them are not aware that they suffer from this condition. Hypercholesterolemia is considered to cause 22 per cent of coronary events, most of which could be prevented with early diagnosis and treatment. The biomedical research centre Navarrabiomed has launched NAGENCOL, a project to address this issue using whole-genome sequencing as a diagnostic tool to offer personalised treatment to patients who suffer from hypercholesterolemia. The project is framed within NAGEN, a global strategy aimed at applying genomic medicine in the Navarra Health System-Osasunbidea (SNS-O).

Currently, hypercholesterolemia poses a real challenge to the public health system, because the life expectancy of untreated patients can decrease by 25 years, and 50 per cent of them are more likely to have a heart attack before the age of 55. NAGENCOL addresses this problem, offering a new model that uses genomic information, together with other clinical and demographic data, to bring precision medicine to individual patients.

This ambitious public health project has a budget of 2 million Euro, contributed by the Department of Economic Development at the Directorate-General for Industry, Energy and Innovation of the Government of Navarra, within the framework of the Genomics and Advanced Medicine project (GEMA) and the Intelligent Specialisation Strategy S3.

The NAGENCOL activities are managed by five strategic partners specialising in clinical practice, scientific and technical services, and research. They include the Navarra Hospital Complex (CHN), Nasertic, Tracasa Instrumental SL and Navarrabiomed as the leader of the study. The project is headed by Dr Ander Ernaga and Dr Juan Pablo Martínez from the Endocrinology Service at CHN.

NAGEN Strategy

Since 2016, Navarrabiomed has been leading the Genomic Medicine Strategy (NAGEN) of the Navarra Health System-Osasunbidea. With the support of the Government of Navarra, Navarrabiomed has since coordinated two strategic projects: NAGEN 1000 (best precision medicine project award winner in 2018) and Pharmanagen.

The two initiatives, along with NAGENCOL, are being used to set up, in the SNS-O patient care units, the infrastructure required for using genomic data as a powerful diagnostic tool and to determine the best personalised treatment for each patient.

Navarrabiomed has led the NAGEN: Navarra Genome 1000 project since 2016. The project focuses on whole genome sequencing for a new approach to rare genetic disorders in the Navarra Health System-Osasunbidea (SNS-O). So far, thanks to collaboration with doctors from 18 medical specialties at the Navarra Hospital Complex (CHN), the study includes data about 400 patients and their relatives, precise diagnoses for 25 per cent patients and identification of possible causes for another 25 per cent.

The patients that are part of the study had not been accurately diagnosed, despite having been treated by several specialists and having taken a large number of traditional tests. Angel Alonso, the coordinator of the project, highlighted the project’s relevance to healthcare services: ‘Making genomic analysis available to the public health system is revolutionary. It means a significant change in the clinical approach to patients with rare genetic disorders.’

Impact on the patient and their family

On the occasion of Rare Disease Day on the last day of February, it is worth mentioning that about 6 per cent of the global population are individuals with rare diseases. In Navarra, their number amounts to 38,000. At present, there are 7000 types of rare diseases, most of them of genetic origin.

In many cases, genetic testing enables the patient and their family to get a deeper knowledge of their condition and its progression, to understand how a genetic disease is inherited and to learn about the risks for other family members. The emotional significance of finding answers to the questions posed by the symptoms – which sometimes have remained unanswered for too long – means putting an end to uncertainty and isolation for most patients with rare diseases.

NAGEN 1000: a pioneering project in Spain

NAGEN 1000 is a ground-breaking project at the national level, placing Navarra at the forefront of genomic analysis and technology. The project was introduced last year at the Senate Presentation of Genomic Studies, whose conclusions were approved in 2019, thus green-lighting the development of a national strategy for personalised medicine.

Currently, the project’s methods, procedures and infrastructure are being transferred to daily clinical practice in SNS-O, to the benefit of the people of Navarra.

NAGEN 1000 is financed by the Economic Development Department at the Directorate-General for Industry, Energy and Innovation within the framework of the Intelligent Specialisation Strategy S3. It is being developed by a consortium made of CHN, Nasertic (a company run by the Government of Navarra), Avantia and Navarrabiomed, leader and coordinator of the project, with the support of the Directorate-General for Information Technology, Telecommunications and Public Information (DIGITIP), and the cooperation of the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (CNAG-CRG) and the Clinical Bioinformatics Research Area into Rare Diseases (CIBERER) of Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII).

• The Carlos III Health Institute finances two projects in Navarre through Spain's COVID-19 Fund and grants the full amount applied for in both cases. 

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, through the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), has awarded €232,000 to develop two public research projects within the context of the Navarre Health Research Institute (IdiSNA). David Escors Murugarren, a researcher at Navarrabiomed, and Jesús Castilla Catalán, a researcher at the Institute of Public and Occupational Health of Navarre (ISPLN), have received 100% of the amounts they applied for from the COVID-19 Fund, a mechanism approved by Royal Decree-Law 8 of 17 March 2020 on urgent extraordinary measures for dealing with the economic and social impact of COVID-19.

David Escors, the principal investigator at the Navarrabiomed Oncoimmunology Research Unit, began his scientific career working on coronaviruses at the Spanish National Biotechnology Center (CNB-CSIC), along with researcher Luis Enjuanes. He then continued his work at University College London (UCL) by applying lentiviral vectors and gene therapy in immunotherapy. He is a coronavirus specialist and the positive evaluation received from the ISCIII will enable him to obtain the €115,000 he applied for to develop the project “Platforms for developing biosafe SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.”

The aim of the initiative is to develop a platform for engineering biosafe vaccines for the virus that causes COVID-19 disease. The focus will be on the expression of viral proteins that may activate immunity. This line of research was started up specifically for COVID-19, given the current health emergency, but is based on the European ISOLDA Project - Horizon 2020 for generating more effective and safer virus vaccines (yellow fever, influenza and coronavirus) for adults over 65. Navarrabiomed has worked on this project since 2019 in coordination with professionals from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and with Dutch, German and Italian collaborators.

Institute of Public and Occupational Health of Navarre

At the Institute of Public and Occupational Health of Navarre’s Group of Infectious Diseases and Vaccines, Jesús Castilla will lead the study “Infection, Hospitalization, ICU Admissions and Deaths Caused by SARS-CoV-2 in a Population Cohort.” To carry out the study, he will also receive the total amount applied for from the ISCIII: €117,000.

His proposal focuses on estimating the effect of sociodemographic characteristics, chronic diseases and other conditioning health factors on the risk of infection, hospitalization and severe forms of COVID-19. This will involve calculating the incidence of suspected cases, infections confirmed using PCR, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, assisted ventilation and mortality. The mortality rate will also be calculated in confirmed cases and hospitalizations. Antibody seroprevalence will also be evaluated in a sample of patients from the sentinel physician network and/or donors.

This is the second SARS-CoV-2 initiative for Jesús Castilla, given the ISPLN’s participation in the European project I-MOVE-COVID-19, with the involvement of 11 countries and 20 organizations. It is one of the European projects funded through the fast-track call of Horizon 2020, the European Union’s research and innovation program to promote research of different aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Both research projects financed by the ISCIII will form part of the scientific activity of the IdiSNA, a public-private partnership for promoting biomedical research in Navarre. Both the ISPLN and Navarrabiomed are partnership members.

El Dr. Hugo Arasanz, oncólogo del Complejo Hospitalario de Navarra e investigador de la Unidad de Inmunomodulación de Navarrabiomed - IdiSNA, recibió ayer en Madrid la Ayuda Clínico Junior de la Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer (AECC). La financiación recibida (120.000 €) se destinará al proyecto "Subpoblaciones linfocitarias como biomarcador predictivo de respuesta a inmunoterapia anti-PD1/PDL1 en carcinoma no-microcítico de pulmón avanzado en 1º línea de tratamiento". Este estudio se desarrollará durante los próximos cuatro años y contará con la dirección del Dr. David Escors. 

El Museo Reina Sofía acogió ayer la entrega de las ayudas anuales de la AECC, dentro de los actos programados en el Día Mundial de la Investigación en Cáncer (WCRD en sus siglas en inglés), que se comemora cada año el 24 de septiembre. En total, la AECC ha entregado casi 21 millones de euros para financiar 171 proyectos que se suman a los 56M€ con los que hoy se están financiando 380 proyectos de investigación en desarrollo.

Asimismo, la asociación ha puesto de manifiesto la necesidad de elaborar un Plan Nacional de Investigación en Cáncer para alcanzar el 70% de supervivencia media a cinco años en el año 2030, en la actualidad se sitúa en un 53%.

Más información sobre el proyecto

La inmunoterapia antiPD1/PDL1 ha supuesto una revolución en el tratamiento del cáncer no-microcítico de pulmón, ya que ha mejorado los resultados de la quimioterapia, asociando además menor toxicidad. Por desgracia la proporción de pacientes que responden al tratamiento es reducida, son menos todavía los que mantienen la enfermedad controlada durante un periodo de tiempo prolongado, y no se dispone de biomarcadores predictivos que permitan identificar a estos pacientes con precisión.

El equipo del Dr. David Escors ha desarrollado un sistema de monitorización de poblaciones linfocitarias por citometría de flujo a partir de sangre periférica en pacientes en progresión a quimioterapia que permite predecir aquellos que van a responder a la inmunoterapia. Dada la reciente aprobación de la inmunoterapia en pacientes en primera línea, este proyecto pretende correlacionar los perfiles linfocitarios de los pacientes y su dinámica con la eficacia del tratamiento en este contexto, incorporando además el estudio de las citosinas proinmunogénicas en plasma y la posible influencia del daño genotóxico en las células inmunitarias producido por las diferentes terapias como causa de menor eficacia en segunda línea.

El proyecto del Dr. Hugo Arasanz se completará con estudios mecanísticos in vitro que permitan conocer los elementos que condicionan la respuesta al tratamiento y plantear combinaciones que puedan revertir la resistencia primaria a estas terapias.