Know the development of cancer through the fruit fly

Barcelona, April 10 2019.- The fruit fly, Drosophila, is an excellent genetically manageable system for modeling the development of cancer, due to the high conservation of signaling pathways, cell proliferation and survival genes between the fly and humans. Drosophila also allows the study of the importance of stem cells and metabolism regulation in the development of cancer.

This was the central theme of the Biomed conference that took place on April 8th- 10th 2019 by the Institute of Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona) with the support of the BBVA Foundation. The day, which was organized by IRB Barcelona ICREA researcher Cayetano González and Ross Cagan, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai brought together more than 150 scientists to analyze Drosophila as a cancer model.

The Drosophila fly allows the study of specific types of tumors, from leukemia to brain tumors, and complex processes such as metastasis or cachexia (extreme muscle weakness) associated with cancer. In addition, it allows the live screening of drugs.

During the day, they worked with experts in this field, such as researcher Nobert Perrimon, from Harvard Medical School, who has talked about intestinal tumors of Drosophila and wasting organs. Also researchers such as Jaume Mora, of the Children's Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Ginés Morata, of the Center for Molecular Biology, CSIC-UAM, Marco Milan, also of IRB Barcelona, Andreas Bergmann, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Allison Bardin, of the Institut Curie, and Andreas Bergmann, University of Massachusetts Medical School.

IRB Barcelona organizes the Barcelona Biomed conferences twice a year thanks to the support of the BBVA Foundation. The next edition will be held in November 2019 on Immunotherapy Beyond Cancer- a cure for aging-related diseases.