cancer

European Research Council backs project focused on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Survival rate among Catalan women improves, shows data revealed for World Breast Cancer Month

Researchers at the Vall d’Hebron hospital VHIO center uncover new function of already-known HMGA1

Catalan News speaks with Héctor G Palmer regarding findings of Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology

VHIO find how some tumoral cells go into hiding and emerge later to cause the disease

The Idibell and ICO research groups participate in international study promising effective therapy for up to 30% of sufferers

Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology presents study at ASCO meeting in Chicago

Researchers in Barcelona hope breakthrough will lead to development of new cancer therapies

Barcelona Institute for Research in Biomedicine’s finding employs use of immunology against colon cancer and its metastasis

Some 5% of breast and colon tumors are inherited, with the number of cases expected to rise significantly in the next few years

Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, the Leo Messi Foundation, the FC Barcelona Foundation and the IESE business school have joined forces to launch a campaign to get companies and the general public to help finance the new SJD Pediatric Cancer Center that is being planned for the city of Barcelona. The hospital, which is set to be Europe’s largest dedicated to infantile cancer and the third-biggest worldwide, will cost 30 MEUR. Once functioning, the centre could care for around 400 patients within its 5,137m² installation, which will be located next to Hospital Sant Joan de Déu. If the deadlines are met, the construction of the new centre will start in the second half of 2017 and be ready by 2019. The facility will allow the increase of the recovery rate for infantile cancer, which is currently around 80%, help develop new drugs and reduce the side effects of treatments used. 

A group of scientists from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology have identified a population of oral tumour cells which may feast on fats to spread throughout the body — a process called metastasis. According to the study, published this Wednesday in the prestigious scientific magazine ‘Nature’, some of these cells expressed high levels of a molecule called CD36, which helps cells to take up lipids from their environment. The research shows that applying antibodies that block CD36 and eliminate its interaction with fatty acids resulted in a reduced number of metastatic focus and also reduced their size by around 80% to 90%. “If we cut the lipids supply to those cells which generate metastasis they are practically unable to spread”, the leader of the IRB ‘Cancer and Stem cells’ team, Salvador Aznar Benitah, explained. 

A team of oncologists led by Joan Massagué has made a breakthrough in cancer research. The team´s new study, one which lasted six years, was published on the 24^th of March in the journal ‘Cell’. The study reveals the mechanics through which cancer cells evade the immune system´s defences and remain dormant for years, only to metastasise at a later time. Cancer cells do this by imitating stem cells, releasing a certain protein inhibitor which puts them in a hibernation-like state, making them undetectable by the immune system. The study also breaks with the more widely-held view of how cancer cells metastasise, and opens new doors for cures and treatment therapies. However, the solution is not so simple, warns Joan Massagué. 

A new computational method allows the detection, within just a few hours, of the genetic alterations responsible for the formation and progression of cancer tumours. This new method manages to accurately identify almost all types of genetic changes of cancer cells in a simple, quick and precise way. It is also able to identify large-scale chromosome rearrangements, which had been difficult to be detect until this breakthrough. The new method, called SMUFIN, has been developed by the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and the ICREA (Catalan Institution of Research and Advanced Studies), in collaboration with research groups from Barcelona, Oviedo and Heidelberg. This progress has been published by the prestigious journal 'Nature Biotechnology' and represents a significant step forward towards the personalised treatment of cancer and other illnesses.

On Tuesday evening the Barcelona-born opera tenor, Josep Carreras received the Golden Medal of the Catalan Parliament for his outstanding and internationally-recognised professional career, but also for his efforts leading a foundation that fights Leukaemia. In his acceptance speech, Carreras defended Catalonia's right to self-determination and the independence vote scheduled for the 9^th of November. Carreras, who became a true world star in the 1990s with the Three Tenors, praised the idiom "live and let live", meaning that the Spanish authorities should authorise the self-determination vote. He asked the Catalan MPs "to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the others live and let us live". His words were particularly relevant as they were said at such an important event and two days ahead of the massive pro-independence demonstration, which will take place in Barcelona on Catalonia's National Day (the 11^th of September).