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The newspaper Heraldo de Soria.Extensa interviews Salvador Aznar Benitah, ICREA researcher at IRB Barcelona and winner of the Premio Nacional de la Fundación Científica Caja Rural de Soria.
The interview focuses on the study published in Nature in December 2016, in which the IRB Barcelona researchers discovered that the protein CD36 enhances cancer metastasis. This protein makes the tumour cell take up fatty acids. The scientists demonstrated that the inhibition of this protein causes a dramatic decrease in the metastatic capacity of certain kinds of tumour.
Furthermore, given the function of CD36 in tumour cells, the researchers also studied the effect of consuming fatty acids, such as palm oil, on metastasis in mice. The results indicate a relationship between the diet and the capacity of tumours to metastasize.
Aznar warns, “We have to be careful not to condemn a kind of oil. One thing is sure and that is that we are consuming an increasing amount of saturated fatty acids because of the type of food we are eating, above all in industrialized societies.”
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).
