Miquel Àngel Pujana: 'The sooner we are able to transfer our knowledge, the better'

Where do we stand today in the research against breast cancer?

We have come a long way in the last ten, twenty years; Currently, 85% of breast cancers can be cured. However, the remaining 15% are tumors that develop in relatively young women , which initially present with poor prognostic features and for those we cannot currently provide targeted, accurate or personalized therapies. Therefore, there is still a long way to go if we consider the incidence of breast cancer in the general population.

How does your research group at IDIBELL tackle this situation?

We work studying the molecular mechanisms that lead to tumor development and how we can "fight" them to promote healing. In this sense, we try to understand why some tumors do not respond to certain therapies and / or why some patients relapse. In fact, resistance to therapy is the most common cause of failure at the moment.

The phenomenon of resistance has an important socio-health impact, as it not only affects a substantial percentage of patients, but also accounts for about 50% of the budget allocated to treatments for this disease in the healthcare public system. Therefore, if we found a precise and efficient treatment for each patient, we would reduce the impact of the disease at different levels; individual, family and society in general.

What role does bioinformatics play in all this?

We are convinced that it is essential to combine the classic experimental component with comprehensive knowledge of what happens in a tumor cell and its surrounding tissue. This involves applying knowledge represented in what we call "systems biology" and bioinformatics to predict or determine how molecules interact with each other and understand processes in a comprehensive way. We work with thousands of data points and hundreds of samples, the so-called big data, and apply it to improvethe knowledge of a particular operation.

Are there contact channels between your research and the patients?

As a translational research group within IDIBELL Campus, and as a research group at the Catalan Institute of Oncology, our goal is patients and their cure, and therefore our priority is that our research somehow reaches the clinical stage. We generate and provide evidence that may improve selection and / or application of current therapies, or allow new treatments to be developed and tested. This is at least our target.

October in general, and the 19th in particular, is dedicated worldwide to awareness of breast cancer. How would you assess the impact of these campaigns?

They have an effect, but we are still far from other countries such as the UK and USA, where social awareness and the idea of helping “fight this problem together” goes way deeper. It is not just a matter of philanthropy, but also of patients' associations, survivors of the disease ... which are much more powerful entities in the international arena that in our country. We are all responsible for this limitation, starting with the researchers. We need to know how to better explain what we do, why we do it and what benefits we are seeking. It is a pending task, and it is also our responsibility to improve it.

Last but not least, do you think we could put an end date in the fight against breast cancer?

If we went to the archive, surely we could find many researchers proclaiming cancer was going to be completely cured in five or ten years, and here we are, five or ten years later, without having succeeded. It is hard to put a date when the research process involves many other aspects that can not always be foreseen, both in terms of scientific and resource limitations and/or translation to the clinic.

In this regard, I would suggest that all entities that fund research improve traceability and accountability of their investment in research; knowledge funded by these investments should not only allow us to generate articles - which are obviously the basis of scientific progress, through which we are evaluated as researchers - but should also reach the society, be transferable, especially when we talk of public funds. We want to be able to transfer this knowledge as soon as possible.

Dr. Pujana will give a talk entitled "improving prevention and cure in breast cancer" tomorrow October18th at 19h00 in Ateneu Pablo Picasso of Viladecans (Passatge Sant Ramon, 2). Do not miss it!