Social Research Call 2023 (SRC 2023)
23 January 2023
New evidence of the relevance of the treatment of sleep apnea and its association with cardiovascular disease
26 January 2023
This line of work is part of the thesis of Beatriz Parejo Alonso, predoctoral researcher in the group “Metabolism and tumor stem cells”
Research by the "Metabolism and tumor stem cells" group at the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón) has concluded that two inhibitors already approved for clinical use and used for the treatment of lung cancer act effectively against tumor stem cells in the pancreas. Therefore, its field of application could be expanded to this body. The main advantage of this approach is the repositioning of a drug, since this avoids the long process of submitting it to clinical trials and the transition from the laboratory to the patient is faster.
These results have been published in the digital version of the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy and in the February paper issue. This is the main work of the thesis of Beatriz Parejo Alonso, member of the group led by Patricia Sancho, which explores new paths in its search for novel therapies for pancreatic cancer that improve the quality and life expectancy of patients who suffer from it. Led from Spain, researchers from Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, Barts Cancer Institute in London, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and Candiolo Cancer Institute in Turin have also participated in the study.
This line of research addresses the study of the population of tumorigenic stem cells, the most aggressive in pancreatic cancer, and the characteristics that define them compared to other cancer cells. Specifically, this group from the IIS Aragón is specialized in the analysis of their metabolism, that is, in how and why these cells use sugars and fats as a food source in a different way than differentiated tumor cells. But, on this occasion, they have gone one step further by detecting that these cells have a greater quantity of a membrane receptor, called ALK, which helps them carry out their functions and increases the specific characteristics that make them so aggressive: their ability self-renewal (the tumor perpetuates itself); tumorigenicity (they are able to create a tumor from scratch); and chemoresistance (they resist current conventional chemotherapy).
Parejo explains that previous studies highlighted the importance of the ALK receptor in a type of lung cancer, due to the high number of patients who present it, and that it serves to define their therapy using inhibitors already approved for clinical use. "We have used two of these inhibitors to treat tumor stem cells and we have shown, both in vitro in the laboratory and in vivo in mice, that they reduce tumorigenicity and delay the reappearance of the tumor after treatment with chemotherapy," highlights Parejo. predoctoral researcher at IIS Aragón, who has had the support of FECYT, Apadrina la Ciencia and Ford Motor Company Foundation.
Pancreatic cancer is a lethal disease, since 90% of patients die the following year after diagnosis, and it is increasingly common in the population due to risk factors such as tobacco, alcohol, diabetes or obesity. . It is a silent disease in early stages, which means that, at the time of diagnosis, the tumor is very advanced, even having formed metastases in other organs. For these reasons, the effectiveness of current treatments decreases practically to zero and survival 5 years after diagnosis is less than 9%.
About the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón)
The IIS Aragón is the Health Research Institute formed by the “Lozano Blesa” and “Miguel Servet” University Hospitals, Primary Health Care, the University of Zaragoza and the Aragonese Institute of Health Sciences. The objectives of the IIS Aragón are to bring together basic and applied, clinical and health services research; create a quality research, care and teaching environment that integrates health professionals, training specialists and postgraduate and undergraduate students, as well as constitute the ideal place for attracting talent and the location of large scientific-technological facilities.
