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Photo: Fundació La Marató de TV3.
 31.10.2019

Researchers from CNAG, IBEC and IRB Barcelona receive funding from La Marató 2018

Yesterday, the Fundació La Marató de TV3 announced the research teams of excellence that will receive funding thanks to 15 million euros, a record amount, collected in the last edition of the program, for cancer research. Collaborative projects involving researchers from three centres located in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB) are among the winners, namely the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (CNAG-CRG), the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). 

 

Ninety-six leading cancer research teams will receive funding from the 2018 edition of La Marató de TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio to conduct 43 research projects of excellence. A decisive boost in cancer research, made possible by a historical marker that will lead to new prevention and diagnostic tools and more efficient treatments to increase the quality of life and life expectancy of people with cancer.

In this edition dedicated to cancer, 192 projects were presented, which were evaluated by 149 international scientists (oncological specialists) according to their quality, methodology and relevance.

The scientists Ivo Gut and Holger Heyn of CNAG-CRG; Pere Roca-Cusachs, Xavier Trepat and Núria Montserrat of IBEC; and Eduard Batlle, Raúl Méndez, Salvador Aznar Benitah, Roger Gomis, María Macías and Meritxell Teixidó of IRB Barcelona are among the teams of researchers who will work over the next three years to find answers in cancer.

The PCB Community joins forces against cancer

There are two projects that will receive funding from the Maratón 2018 that are a good example of collaborative research and the creation of synergies that are generated by an ecosystem like the Barcelona Science Park.

One of these initiatives is the one coordinated jointly by the researchers Eduard Batlle of IRB Barcelona, Holger Heyn of CNAG-CRG and Xavier Trepat of IBEC, which proposes studying how some tumours are able to evade the immune system and, specifically, how they prevent the action of T lymphocytes.

The other project is co-led by the researchers Salvador Aznar Benitah of IRB Barcelona and Ivo Gut of CNAG-CRG, and aims to provide answers as to why certain fatty acids in the diet favour the process of metastasis, i.e., the spread of cancer cells from the primary tumour to other tissues.

►More information: CNAG-CRG website [+], IBEC website [+] and IRB Barcelona website [+]