Our body’s circadian rhythm is “the biological clock that allows us to adapt to an environment that changes periodically with the daily rotation of the Earth,” explains María Casanova-Acebes, head of the CNIO Cancer Immunity Group. Five years ago Casanova-Acebes discovered a clear link between our biological clock, the immune system and cancer. According to this finding, immune system cells also regulate the circadian rhythm in tissues -that is, the changes that occur in tissues depending on whether it is day or night- and influence susceptibility to the development of cancer.
To further investigate the relevance of the human biological clock in cancer prevention, Casanova-Acebes and her group, in collaboration with the CNIO Biobank, have begun to study the effects of chronic jet lag on immune system cells in air crew members, i.e., flight personnel who fly short and long-range (transoceanic) flights, with anomalies known as jet-lag.
Thanks to the collaboration with the Spanish Association of Flight Attendants (AETCP), during the next four years blood samples from these crew members will be taken, to analyze changes potentially related to alterations in circadian rhythms. This week, one of the periodic samples was taken in a mobile unit donated altruistically by Quironsalud, located at the entrance to the CNIO.
“In the blood we can detect markers in immune cells, which can help us to find alterations in the circadian rhythm that predispose to the development of inflammatory diseases, including cancer,” explains Casanova-Acebes. “We want to analyze these markers in immune system cells in blood.”
Participants donate blood before and after a long-haul flight, and again after 6 months. The study will last 4 years.
More than 36,000 tissue samples in the CNIO Biobank
The samples are preserved at the CNIO Biobank, an essential infrastructure in biomedical research. As Eva Ortega-Paíno, Director of the CNIO Biobank, explains, “biobanks collect, store and manage biological samples -solid tissues (tumors) or liquids (blood), and substances such as urine, feces and saliva)-, as well as the clinical data associated with these samples, with high quality standards; they are used to support and service research”.
The main objective of the CNIO Biobank is to provide researchers with access to quality human samples and their associated data for research in cancer and related diseases.
Currently, the CNIO Biobank houses more than 8500 samples of lymphomas, gynecological and digestive neoplasms, mammary carcinomas, non-neoplastic cases and primary skin cultures. Overall, the Biobank has more than 36,000 tissue samples.
Recently, the CNIO Biobank has launched the first collection of brain metastasis samples, within the National Brain Metastasis Network RENACER.
Image: The extraction team, with CNIO researchers Alba de Juan, María Casanova-Acebes, Eva Ortega Paíno (second, third and fourth from left, respectively), and María Jesús Artiga (second from right)./ Laura M. Lombardía.CNIO
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