The IIS Aragón for the fight against cancer: «We have a research ecosystem in the community»

Patricia Sancho and Eduardo Aranda are two Aragonese researchers who claim that their work means "betting on the health of tomorrow"

«Researching is betting on tomorrow's health", says Patricia Sancho. She is part of the Aragon Health Research Institute (IIS Aragon), and now leads the Metabolism and Tumor Stem Cells Group, where she researches new strategies to treat pancreatic cancer. And that is why, on such an important date as this Tuesday, World Cancer Research Day, highlights the importance of his work:

What is advanced today will be the cures of the future

Patricia Sancho

Her passion for research came to her as a child, when her interest in science was awakened. biology. She says that, motivated by her goals and faced with the "lack of options in Zaragoza", she went to study in Madrid. Another of her destinations was England, where she formed a team that worked very well. It was then that she considered returning to Aragon with them."I thought there was no research done here, but I explored and saw that there were many groups," he confesses.

But there were very few who were dedicated to cancer. Thus, in 2017, a new project began Zaragoza His research on the metabolism of pancreatic cancer, which he continues to work on today, is aimed at "finding out what cancer feeds on (glucose, fat, etc.)," ​​says Sancho."If we know what it feeds on, we can block it and starve those tumors," he says.

And to do so, resources are needed. Sancho's project has two national grants (Seed Ideas and Worldwide) and, although he claims that in the community "more is still needed", he also stresses that "research in Aragon has improved a lot in recent years and the intention is to continue like this."

Since I arrived, I and other researchers have created an ecosystem of cancer research in Aragon.

Patricia Sancho

His voice is joined by that of Eduardo Aranda, Another Researcher He is a leader in Aragon. “If you invest in research, you can achieve treatments, but also prevent diseases,” he says. Although he started his pre-doctoral project four months ago, he believes that “in Spain it is very difficult to do research.” “You have to wait to get funding,” he says. 

Now, thanks to a grant from the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), works in a laboratory of the Clinical hospital from Zaragoza in which, instead of using common instruments, investigate with simulations to understand the role of the immune system in cancer and, specifically, in metastasis. This is, says Aranda, "when cancer cells separate from the organ in which they originated and spread to another region of the body."

Although his research group is not huge, since it consists of six people, Aranda stresses that "it has grown compared to a year ago, when there were only two." 

Source: The newspaper of Aragon