UB Research on Lung Cancer Receives a Grant from the AECC

The Solidarity Night gala, organized by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), recognized the work of Dr. Jordi Alcaraz with a grant of € 35,000 to promote his research on lung cancer. The project, entitled "Re-engineering the activated stroma of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung by targeting the aberrant SMAD2-YAP1 fibroblast signaling," aims to study a new therapeutic strategy to treat lung squamous cell carcinoma by re-engineering the specific alterations in the TGF-b signaling pathway present in fibroblasts from patients with this disease, which accounts for 40% of non-microcytic lung carcinomas. These alterations make the stroma much more fibrotic and contractile, which can collapse blood vessels and stimulate adjacent cancer cells.

This project is a continuation of the research carried out by Dr. Alcaraz's group at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona in collaboration with Dr. Noemí Reguart—based at the Hospital Clínic—on the stroma of lung cancer, a still rather unknown aspect of this type of cancer. During the gala, the AECC awarded seven grants to research projects related to the fight against cancer.