Morant reaffirms the Government's commitment to the fight against breast cancer

Woman researcher in a laboratory

The minister said: "We are investing heavily in science and innovation because they are the best tools to improve patients' health and drive new advances in prevention, early diagnosis and treatment.

Among the research projects, funded through the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) and the State Research Agency (AEI), are various projects focusing on genetic techniques to combat metastasis or resistance to drugs and treatments.

A total of 125 projects financed by the ISCIII

Specifically, between 2018 and 2023, the ISCIII funded a total of 125 research projects on breast cancer, with a total amount of 18 million euros, through calls within the framework of the Strategic Action in Health (AES), such as Independent Clinical Research, Health Research projects or Personalised Precision Medicine projects, among others.

One of the research projects, supported by the European funds of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and in the framework of the PERTE for Cutting-Edge Health, combines clinical and translational oncology, data science, engineering and artificial intelligence to develop digital patient twins to test thousands of personalised interventions to select the right one for each unique patient.

The study is led by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) and involves the participation of universities and health research institutes from Andalusia, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, Valencia, Extremadura, Galicia and Navarre.

The ISCIII also conducts research on breast cancer through the CNIO and the CIBER on Oncology (CIBERONC), which are entirely dedicated to this field, while the National Epidemiology Centre, the Institute for Research on Rare Diseases and the Chronic Diseases Research Unit have various lines of research on cancer. This is in addition to the work of the Biobanks Platform, whose tissue collections play a key role in cancer research.

In addition, the ISCIII collaborates with international agents and projects such as the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and in the development of the European Cancer Mission within the framework of the European R&D programme Horizon Europe. In turn, the ISCIII is a funding agent for the ERA NET TRANSCAN international calls.

A total of 61 projects funded by the AEI

For its part, the State Research Agency has allocated more than 12.3 million euros since 2018 to 61 projects on breast cancer, including research by the Barcelona Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) to identify persistent and drug-tolerant breast cancer cells, as part of the call for grants for 'Knowledge Generation Projects'.

Another of the Knowledge Generation Projects, from the Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology of the University of the Basque Country (UPV), is aimed at laying the foundations of epigenetic regulation in breast cancer in order to obtain potential personalised combinatorial therapies for patients.

Non official translation