Oncology
Translational Research in Child and Adolescent Cancer
Josep Sánchez de Toledo
Soledad Gallego, Cristina Díaz de Heredia, Anna Llort, Constantino Sábado, Luis Gros, Raquel Hladun, Laura Alonso, Izaskun Elorza, Josep Roma, Miquel F Segura, Aroa Soriano, Ana Almazán, Luz Jubierre, Carla Molist, Laia París, Irina Giralt, Ariadna Boloix, Isaac Vidal, Patricia Zarsosa
Summary
During 2015, the group of Translational Research in Child and Adolescent Cancer has consolidated their previously existing research cell lines and set the basis for the development of a new one related to personalized medicine. The members of the group have participated in 13 publications and two of the Principal Investigators have been awarded with grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. In addition, the group has established and consolidated agreements with biotech companies to test and develop new therapeutic tools against the most aggressive pediatric solid tumors.
Childhood cancers differ greatly from adult malignancies owing to their lower frequency, different etiology, biology, response to treatment and outcome. However, during the last decades, advances in the knowledge of childhood cancers have improved current overall survival to 75-80%. Even with this better knowledge, cancer remains the second cause of childhood mortality. Nevertheless, the survival of high-risk patients with pediatric tumors such as Rhabdomyosarcoma or Neuroblastoma is below 30%, and those who do survive suffer multiple side effects related to the aggressive treatments. Therefore, new alternative therapies are needed to improve the safety and success of treatments. Our group is composed of clinical and basic researchers and we are aimed to discover new therapeutic targets and develop new treatments and test their efficacy in preclinical mouse models.