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Elena Sancho studies colon cancer and its metastases in IRB Barcelona’s Colorectal Cancer Lab. Photo: IRB Barcelona.
 26.05.2015

From new therapies to personalized medicine. Toward cancer as a chronic condition

Today at 19.00 h in the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Elena Sancho, associate researcher at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) –based in the Parc Científic de Barcelona– will give a public talk "From new therapies to personalized medicine. Toward cancer as a chronic condition”. The conference  forms part of the Perspectives Barcelona Biomed series “Science today for the medicine of the future”—informative talks hosted by the CCCB and organised on the occasion of IRB Barcelona’s 10th anniversary (2005-2015).

 

Elena Sancho studies colon cancer and its metastases in IRB Barcelona’s Colorectal Cancer Lab, where scientists are making ground-breaking contributions to the understanding and treatment of a disease that is among the leading causes of death in developed countries.

One of the most important contributions made by this laboratory has been the discovery of a mechanism that allows colon cancer to metastasize. This result brought about the development of a diagnostic test to differentiate between patients with a good or poor prognosis, as well as the possibility to identify those patients who will most benefit from the treatments currently being developed. “This is an example of a breakthrough that could be very useful for physicians. Fortunately, we have access to a variety of tools and resources that allow us to progress much faster than 30 years ago,” explains Sancho.

The experts indicate that since the 1980s the incidence of cancer has not stopped increasing and state that one in three individuals will be affected by some kind of cancer during their lifetime. While this holds true, science has made great progress over the last 30 years. Half of all cancer cases are cured—there are more than 200 types of cancer—and over the last 45 years cancer survival has tripled—for some kinds, such as breast cancer, survival at 5 years reaches 90%. In addition, the first treatments for metastasis—the spread of the primary tumour to other organs, a process that causes 90% of deaths from cancer—are emerging. “This first quarter of a century we are witnessing and will continue to witness significant breakthroughs thanks to basic research performed by hundreds of labs worldwide—breakthroughs that allow us to consider the feasibility of turning cancer into a chronic disease.”

Admission to the event is free, and it will be broadcasted live through this link [+]