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07/07/2009 - General information

The AECC grants €1,200,000 to a project in which IMIM is participating

Following the assessment by the National Agency of Evaluation and Prospective Studies (ANEP), the Foundation Board of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) approved, on 17 June, the awarding of two grants worth 1,200,000 euros over a period of 5 years to research programmes that jointly coordinate and run a translational research programme.

The aim of the grants is to foster the continuation of financed research, providing greater flexibility and stability to research groups. It has a two-fold objective: to speed up the transference of the results to clinical practice in order to benefit patients and their relatives; and to increase the research critical mass in oncology in Spain. This is the second time that these grants have been awarded.

Of the 32 applications received, the two winning projects this year are resolutely committed to translational research in colon cancer and to achieving therapeutic targets that enable better treatment of the disease:

Analysis of the role of stroma in the growth and invasion of colon carcinomas: identification, characterisation and clinical potential of markers of stromal activation

The research team for this project is comprised of Dr. Felix Bonilla from the Puerta de Hierro Hospital in Madrid (coordinating institution), the group led by Dr. Ignacio Casal from the Biological Research Centre (Madrid) and the group of Prof. Antonio Garcia de Herreros from IMIM-Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, coordinator of the group from the Cancer Programme researching epithelial-mesenchymal transition and tumour progression.

The project will characterise the activation process of the tumour environment using samples of colorectal tumours as well as animal models and the importance of this process in clinical practice.

Importance of the oncogenic GTPase TC21 in tumourigenic processes

The research team for this project is comprised of Prof. Xosé Ramón García Bustelo from the Cancer Research Centre (CIC) in Salamanca (coordinating institution), Dr. José Alberto Orfao from the University of Salamanca and Prof. Balbino Alarcón from the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Centre (CSIC) in Madrid.

Project on the GTPase TC21 protein in a multidisciplinary approach in cell cultures, human tumours and mice models.

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