The IRB Barcelona will lead a pioneering program to understand and combat metastasis

The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) will lead a pioneering investigation to learn more about metastasis and advance in the development of therapies that can cure it. The center, located in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), has been selected by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) to launch an excellence program that will be endowed with two million euros and will last four years.

The AECC, made up of more than 700,000 members, has set itself the goal of increasing cancer survival to 70% by 2030. "Cancer is the most important health problem in the world. We know that one in two women and one in three men will have it throughout their lives," defends Dr. Laureano Molins, president of the association in Barcelona. Currently, survival stands at 61% for women and 55% for men. "We will only be able to increase it with research," Molins defends. The entity allocates a total of 104 million euros to research, with 565 projects, of which more than a quarter are concentrated in Catalonia.

Twelve laboratories from IRB Barcelona will participate in the association's new program, created almost 20 years ago with a focus on metastasis, a disease responsible for 90% of cancer deaths. "Metastasis is an pending issue to make cancer stop killing," indicates the center's director, Dr. Francesc Posas. "The big problem with cancer is not the disease that initially arises but the ability of these tumors to disseminate cells and sow them in other organs. For many years, surgeons and oncologists have cured large cancers very effectively with surgery, but, unfortunately, there are many patients who at the time of diagnosis have metastasis or end up developing it," explains Dr. Eduard Batlle, head of the Cancer program at IRB Barcelona.

The foundational commitment of the Barcelona center to investigate this residual disease, consisting of the spread of cancer cells from the primary tumor to other organs, has made it a benchmark, and the new program must serve to keep it in the world league and open up to new fields of study. With metastasis, the problem is that diseased cells hide in organs and are invisible at the time of diagnosis of the primary tumor: "These cells are mysterious, and we don't understand them. Some reappear after a while, like in a year, but, in other cases, such as in breast cancer, they can do so after 15 or 20 years."

Precisely, breast cancer will be one of the four that will be studied in the new excellence program of the IRB Barcelona. It will also be done with pancreatic cancer, which has a very complicated diagnosis, or colon cancer, with 40% of patients ending up developing metastasis, even though the primary tumor heals well. "It is fundamental that we study this phase of the disease because if we are able to eliminate these residual cells, we are going to prevent metastasis, and this will help thousands of patients," adds Batlle. Squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck will be the fourth type of cancer to be included in the program.

The second objective of the research institute with the launch of the AECC program will be to improve the treatment of metastatic disease, which has a very rapid progression and no ways to stop it. "There are no good therapies for metastasis because research has focused for decades on understanding the primary tumor and not the residual disease," remarks the IRB Barcelona researcher. Immunotherapy, a treatment that consists of strengthening the immune system to destroy malignant cells, is positioned as a path to explore for the cure of cancer, although it does not work for all types.

Precisely, the AECC has launched two more excellence programs and one of them has gone to another Barcelona center, the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO). In their case, the aid will be used to develop advanced therapies against cancer, such as CAR-T cells, a type of immunotherapy in which lymphocytes are genetically modified to help them attack tumors. Endowed with two million euros and with a duration of two years, the program is led by Dr. Silvia Martin and will serve to build new facilities such as a clean room in which to develop these new products.