• Find people
• Intranet

News

03/03/2026 - Press release

Three projects from the Hospital del Mar Research Institute receive grants from the Spanish Association Against Cancer

They are part of the sixty research grants awarded by the organization, with total funding of more than thirteen million euros.

The Spanish Association Against Cancer has awarded three of its research grants to projects led by researchers from the Hospital del Mar Research Institute (HMRIB). In total, sixty grants have been awarded: 54 to research projects and six accreditations to research centers. Altogether, this represents an investment in research of more than thirteen million euros.

The project entitled 'New personalized and preoperative treatment strategy in biomarker-selected patients with localized colon cancer: the PAVAN study' is led by Dr. Clara Montagut, Head of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Section of the Medical Oncology Department at Hospital del Mar and Coordinator of the Precision Medicine in Colorectal Cancer Research Group at HMRIB. She has received a 2025 Clinical Studies Grant of nearly one million euros to investigate how to increase the chances of cure in a subgroup of patients through a personalized treatment administered before surgery. The strategy combines chemotherapy and targeted therapy based on specific biomarkers.

The AECC Talent 2025 grant, endowed with 259,200 euros, has been awarded to Dr. Rosa Pascual, from the Cancer Cellular States and Metastasis Immunity Research Group at HMRIB. The aim of this project is to develop innovative immune-based strategies for breast cancer prevention. It seeks to identify how to make precancerous cells more visible to the body's immune defenses so they can be eliminated before tumor development.

Clara Montagut and Rosa Pascual

The third grant has been awarded to Dr. Maria Martínez, Head of the Neuro-Oncology Section of the Medical Oncology Department at Hospital del Mar and researcher in the Molecular Cancer Therapy Research Group at its research institute. She will receive 50,000 euros for the project she leads within the ERA-NET TRANSCAN-3 JTC 2024 call, co-funded by the European Union. This project aims to develop personalized treatments applied during surgery in patients with recurrent glioblastoma.

In addition, the Hospital del Mar Research Institute has received a 20,000-euro grant as accreditation as a research center of the Spanish Association Against Cancer.

These grants cover all stages of the research career and aim to support projects with real impact, with the goal of achieving over 70% cancer survival by 2030.

More news