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Eduard Batlle receives the “Premio Ciencias de la Salud” from the “Fundación Caja Rural de Granada”
The jury of the 11th “Premio Ciencias de la Salud” awarded by the Fundación Caja Rural de Granada has unanimously voted to present the research award to the study entitled “Identificación de los subtipos moleculares con mal pronóstico en el cáncer colorectal a través del estroma tumoral”, headed by Eduard Batlle, ICREA researcher at IRB Barcelona.
According to the committee of experts, the research opens up a new way of understanding cancer. The study reveals that, in addition to classifying patients with colon cancer using traditional methods based on the degree of malignancy of tumour cells, patient evolution can be reliably predicted by analysing the cells surrounding the tumour. In other words, for the prognosis of the disease, the tissue surrounding the tumour is equally or more important than the tumour itself. This discovery also paves the way for new treatments for metastases, many of which are still incurable.
This project has arisen from an article published in Nature Genetics in February 2015 by IRB Barcelona’s Colorectal Cancer Lab, led by Batlle. The study sets the scene for the development of a test that measures between four and six gene in the tissue around the tumour and that could allow the identification of those patients at risk of relapse after surgical removal of the growth.
The jury gave special mention to the quality of the 18 projects presented for the research prize, thus highlighting the award one of the most valuable recognitions in the field.
More information: Fundación Caja Rural de Granada
About IRB Barcelona
The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) pursues a society free of disease. To this end, it conducts multidisciplinary research of excellence to cure cancer and other diseases linked to ageing. It establishes technology transfer agreements with the pharmaceutical industry and major hospitals to bring research results closer to society, and organises a range of science outreach activities to engage the public in an open dialogue. IRB Barcelona is an international centre that hosts 400 researchers and more than 30 nationalities. Recognised as a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence since 2011, IRB Barcelona is a CERCA centre and member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST).
