A project led by Dr. Toni Celià-Terrassa receives one of the Chiara Giorgetti Awards for research into metastatic breast cancer

The Spanish Association for Metastatic Breast Cancer (AECMM) has decided to grant one of the awards in the seventh edition of the M. Chiara Giorgetti Award for research into metastatic breast cancer to a project led by Dr. Toni Celià-Terrassa, a researcher in the Cancer Stem Cells and Metastasis Dynamics Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute. The project has received the second prize, endowed with €80,000. The award ceremony will take place next June.

The project will build on the findings of a recent study by the same research group, published in the journal Cancer Cell. It will analyze the role of the protein TIM-3 in the development of resistance to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and how residual disease may serve as a predictor of metastasis. The expected results are intended to pave the way for the launch of a clinical trial led by the Medical Oncology Department at Hospital del Mar.

TIM-3 enables tumor cells to suppress the immune system when they reach distant organs during metastasis, facilitating their survival at a critical stage of the disease. This makes the protein a potential therapeutic target for preventing metastasis, an aspect that will be investigated in the project awarded by the AECMM.