The XXIV FERO Scholarships were awarded at a charity dinner held tonight in Barcelona, which in this edition have gone to two winning projects, and the V FERO-ghd Project on breast cancer has also been announced. The selected researchers will receive a total of 240,000 euros, which means 80,000 for each of the three translational research projects – which results from the joint work of researchers from different areas – over the course of two years.
The National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) has hosted the gala, which has been attended by more than 700 people, and which has featured prominent personalities from the scientific and social fields, including the president of Grupo Planeta and Atresmedia, José Creuheras. The event was hosted by the journalist Nuria Roca and led by the president of the FERO Foundation, Sol Daurella.
“Every year we receive projects that demonstrate the high level of research in our country, led by young researchers with great potential, as well as established researchers with national and international recognition. This excites us and fills us with pride, and we are convinced that all these projects will help us improve cancer treatment, and we hope that they will soon have an impact on patients”, Sol Daurella asserted in his speech.
Dr. Jon Zugazagoitia, oncologist at Hospital 12 de Octubre and researcher at the Hospital 12 de Octubre i+12 Research Institute in Madrid, has been the winner of the first of the XXIV FERO Scholarships, which is sponsored by the Bosch Aymerich Foundation. With his project he seeks to improve the immune response and increase the efficacy of the treatment of lung cancer with immunotherapy through the intratumoral administration of mRNA of the OX40L protein.
To do this, the research team will use tumor samples from patients, both human and mouse cell lines, immunocompetent mouse models, and single cell and spatial resolution technologies.
“Through this project we hope to demonstrate that this strategy can increase the efficacy of immunotherapy based on PD-1 inhibition and improve survival in patients with lung cancer who have not responded adequately to current treatments,” explained Zugazagoitia.
For his part, Dr. Francisco Martínez, a young researcher who recently joined the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) in Barcelona and who has a long career in the field of computational biology, has been awarded the the second FERO Scholarship, sponsored by the Ramón Areces Foundation. His project will study how the genetic alteration of immune escape affects the response to immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors in different types of cancer.
“Checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment. However, it is important to identify biomarkers that help us predict which patients will and will not respond to these therapies. One of the causes of resistance could be tumor-specific immune escape or GIE genetic alterations,” explained Dr. Martínez. Identifying biomarkers would not only improve response rates, but would reduce the burden of long-term treatment in patients who do not show positive responses, the expert added.
José Creuheras and his wife, Columna Martí, at the XXIV Edition of the FERO Grants for cancer research Tiffany Torres Tiffany Torres
Avoid metastasis
Finally, Dr. Mariona Graupera, a nationally and internationally recognized researcher at the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute (IJC) in Barcelona, has been selected for the V FERO-ghd Breast Cancer Project. Her objective is to investigate the mechanisms behind the spread of breast cancer to the bone, the primary site where metastases occur in this type of cancer, and which is correlated with a poor prognosis.
“Breast cancer remains one of the leading causes of death for women worldwide. Although the survival rate in localized cancer is 98%, this decreases to 28% in the case of distant metastases, especially in the bone”, indicated Graupera.
18 experts on the jury
A total of 63 research projects have been submitted to this new edition of the Fero Scholarships, of which 45 were eligible for the FERO Scholarships and 18 for the FERO-ghd Project. In its 15 years, this call has sought to promote the development of cancer research in Spain. The selection of the projects is in charge of the jury of the scholarships, 18 independent researchers of reference in the field of oncology. At the head was Dr. Andrés Cervantes, head of the Medical Oncology Service of the Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valencia.
