Cancer and dementia research projects funded by the 'la Caixa' Foundation

The “la Caixa” Foundation has funded two research projects at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) which aim to identify new therapeutic targets for cancer and develop new prevention strategies for dementia. The projects will be carried out in collaboration with the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC).

RBM10 is a gene that encodes for a protein that regulates vital biological functions such as development, inflammation or cardiac health. Alterations to this gene have been previously linked to the development of tumours, for example in 10% of lung cancer cases, 5-8% of bladder cancers and 5% of pancreatic cases. Collectively this results in 1.5 million new cases each year worldwide.

Previous research by ICREA Research Professor Juan Valcárcel at the CRG, has helped to establish a role for the inactivation of the RBM10 gene in lung cancer growth. The new funding will help further study of the consequences of RBM10 inactivation in bladder and pancreatic tumours, with the aim of identifying new therapeutic targets in collaboration with the group of Francisco X. Real at CNIO in Madrid.

Neurodegenerative diseases are associated with the pathological accumulation of certain proteins in the brain. These come in various forms, such as beta-amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's, alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's, and Tau proteins in frontotemporal dementia. Certain mutations cause some people to accelerate the formation of protein deposits in the brain, leading them to develop infrequent and more aggressive forms of these conditions.

Research led by ICREA Research Professor Ben Lehner at CRG and Junior Group Leader Benedetta Bolognesi at IBEC aims to better understand the variants that cause these neurodegenerative diseases and to develop methods to predict whether a person is more susceptible to dementia and develop new prevention strategies to prevent or treat it.

The “la Caixa” Foundation’s Health Research Projects fund cutting-edge research initiatives that address health challenges in the fields of cardiovascular, infectious and oncological diseases, as well as neuroscience. This year thirty projects were selected across Spain and Portugal from a total of 644 proposals. The “la Caixa” Foundation has allocated around 72 million euros to a total of 105 initiatives since 2018.