Call 2024 Joint Missions for the granting of subsidies to Research Projects aimed at the Implementation of Personalized Precision Medicine, under the PERTE Vanguard Health and within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan
17 July 2024
What happens to your brain when you take psilocybin?
19 July 2024The work, whose cost amounts to 3 million euros, is possible thanks in part to the posthumous donation of 1,9 million from Clementa Soria from Zaragoza to the Spanish Association Against Cancer to support research
La posthumous donation of 1,9 million euros from Clementa Soria from Zaragoza to the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC) in Aragon has begun to materialize in what will be the future Advanced Therapies Unit, intended for the application of new immunotherapy treatments.
The total cost of the works, as indicated by the Ministry of Health, amounts to 3 millones de euros and will be paid for with a part of the legacy received. The project also has added by the IIS Aragón Health Research Institute and the regional Executive.
In this way, the will of this kindergarten teacher from Zaragoza, who died in December 2021 after being diagnosed months before with pancreatic cancer, will come true. Before she died she wrote that He wanted to allocate his entire assets to oncological research in his homeland.
At the beginning of this month of July, work began on the spaces that will house the future Advanced Therapies Unit, and it is expected that the execution period be about eight months.
This new service will be used to produce and apply new CAR-T cell immunotherapies in the future, that is, the newest treatments in the fight against cancer and other diseases when traditional therapies, such as chemotherapy, have failed or have been insufficient, explained from Aspanoa, the Association of Parents of Oncological Children of Aragon. Currently, all Aragonese patients who require these treatments have to be referred to hospitals in other autonomous communities.
In this sense, Diego Sánchez, Araid researcher at IIS Aragón and scientific director of the Advanced Therapies Unit, anticipates that when the works are completed they will proceed to accredit the space by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (Aemps): "Afterwards, it will be available so that, from a scientific point of view, we can join a clinical trial that is in progress or also transfer the advances we have made in the laboratory to a clinical trial."
This unit will be located in a space in the first floor of the Miguel Servet University Hospital of Zaragoza. The objective is for the new spaces, including the advanced therapies research unit, to be operational in the first quarter of 2025. “A clean room (like the one that will be launched in this unit) is a unique facility, of which Aragon lacks. It is one of the few autonomous communities that does not have it,” the IIS Aragón highlights: “It will allow us to get out of the caboose”. “It will allow – adds Sánchez – to develop advanced therapies, including CAR-T, which is a revolution in the treatment of hematological cancers, which is expected to have much greater development to improve these treatments.” This project also has a “double objective”: “Firstly, it will allow us to participate in a clinical trial and accredit hospitals, both Servet and Clínico, to use this type of therapies; and, furthermore, when the space is operational it will allow us to transfer the research that we have to the clinic.”
For Patxi García, director in Aragon of the Spanish Association Against Cancer, “the impulse given by the legacy of Clementa Soria instrumentalized by AECC, the IIS Aragón and the Government of Aragón is fundamental since It will allow us to take an incredible leap in the application of cutting-edge treatments in our Community. and the launch of new public clinical trials in oncological treatments.” Without a doubt, he adds: “It supposes one before and one after in the treatment of Aragonese cancer patients, who will no longer have to go to other communities to access certain cancer treatments. The start of the works brings us closer to the implementation of these therapies.”
It is going to be renovated area of 2.000 square meters which will include a grade B clean room with three rooms for the production of advanced therapy drugs, essential for administering CAR-T and CAR-NK cell therapies. These are treatments in which the patient's T cells (type of immune system cell) are modified in the laboratory so that they attack cancer cells. These therapies are not yet carried out in Aragon and the Department of Health, through the Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón), has launched a project to implement them in the Community.
The IIS Aragón is the Health Research Institute formed by the Clínico Lozano Blesa and Miguel Servet University Hospitals and primary health care, the University of Zaragoza and the Aragonese Institute of Health Sciences (IACS). The initiative of the Advanced Therapies Unit also has the support of Aspanoa, as this entity promotes research for the administration of this type of therapies also in the youngest children.
Source: Heraldo de Aragón
Image: DGA