At the IGTP TODAY
Resistance, chemotherapy and predictive biomarkers
The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Pathobiology Group Annual Meeting took place on October 24 and 25, organized jointly by the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP). Over the two-day event, a series of talks on therapies to fight cancer were held both at the IGTP facilities and online.
The XX edition of the Conference on Translational Research and Digestive Neoplasms took place on Thursday 6 October. It was organized jointly by the IGTP and the ICO (Catalan Institute of Oncology) and directed by Drs José Luis Manzano and Eva Martinez-Balibrea (ICO - IGTP) and Dr Albert Abad (Mi Tres Torres). The workshop took place at the Badalona Conference Centre (BCIN), with very positive feedback from the fifty attendees and the organization.
CARE, the Translational Program in Cancer Research is the first transversal program promoted by the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), and it aims to become a bridge for researchers in the field of cancer who want to bring basic and clinical research together, so that the knowledge and the tools generated in the laboratory can benefit the patient.
The COST Programme (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) has approved 70 new actions and Spain is coordinating nine of them, making it second in the ranking of countries leading COST Actions after Italy, which is coordinating ten. Three of the Spanish projects are from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) and two of these are being led by the IGTP. COST Actions run for four years and this round will start in the coming autumn.
The XIX edition of the Translational Research and Digestive Neoplasms Workshop was declared a complete success, both as it was able to be carried out face to face, but also for the level of the participating speakers.
On 1-2 October the 18th edition of the Workshop on Translational Research in Digestive Neoplasms took place, organized by the IGTP and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO). This edition was inevitably marked by all the safety measures required due to the pandemic, but it also provided a programme that did not disappoint those attending.
A new paper reviews the use of curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, as a possible combination with current therapies for colorectal cancer, it has been published in Seminars in Cancer Biology. The study, led by Vicenç Ruiz de Porras of the IGTP and ICO shows that research so far points to curcumin being a likely candidate for future cancer therapies.
This year the Fundación Mutua Madrileña has allocated 2.3 million euros for financing medical research in Spain. Four of the 21 clinical studies benefiting are projects being carried out in Catalan research centres, which will receive a total of 540,000 euros. One of these is being led by the Germans Trias I Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) and coordinated between four groups of the Programme for Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer (IGTP-PMPPC).
On Friday a very special crowd-funding project got underway to support cancer research at Can Ruti. Sales of the book, which describes the experiences of a colon cancer patient in his own words, will be donated to research into the illness carried out by the IGTP Group led by Eva Martínez-Balibrea.
With more than 25 speakers the workshop has been a meeting point for professionals discussing the latest advances in the field of molecular diagnostics of urological tumours, immunotherapy and the emerging lines of research in this branch of oncology.
