Cantabria has launched a Strategy in Precision Medicine for which it wishes to align all the fundamental actors when it comes to achieving a definitive boost and becoming a development pole of reference in this field. To this end, it has brought together managers, institutional and business representatives, researchers, academics and health professionals in the I Precision Conferenceheld in the Marquis de Valdecilla University Hospitalorganized by the IDIVAL research institute.
The new Minister of Health of the Government of Cantabria, Raul Fishery, has applauded the numerous initiatives and shared developments that have borne fruit in recent years, giving rise to effective improvements in the treatment of patients. In addition, he has pointed out that the next unavoidable challenges are the attraction of talent, intelligent data management and the promotion of public-private collaboration.
Talent attraction, intelligent data management and promotion of public-private collaboration, challenges set by the new director
During the day, the managing director of the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, Raphael Woventhe rector of the University of Cantabria, Ángel Pazosand the president of the General Council of Official Colleges of Physicians (Cgcom), Thomas Coboagreed to point out that in Cantabria there are “unique circumstances to achieve the proposed challenge”.
Thus, they pointed out the advantage of joining Hospital Valdecilla and IDIVAL with the University of Cantabria and the CSIC (Higher Council for Scientific Research), enabling a unique environment for the development of research and biomedicine. “We have all the ingredients to make it possible,” they stressed.
Valdecilla Conference
The conference deepened knowledge of some of the tools that have been set up with the aim of achieving quality biomedical research, such as the Cantabria Cohort, a pioneering project in the development of Precision Medicine, which has already garnered the collaboration of more than 13,000 citizens of the region; the International Precision Medicine Forum, which brings together national and international experts from different disciplines, creating a knowledge exchange network that is also shared openly through the internet to the entire scientific community; and the new Valdecilla Clinical Trials Unit.
This was explained by the managing director of the IDIVAL research institute, Gallo Peraltathe scientific director and president of the Spanish Society of Immunology (SEI), Marcos Lopez Hoyosand the president of the Spanish Society of Digestive Pathology (Sepd) and head of the Digestive Service of the Valdecilla Hospital, Javier Crespo. All of them pointed out the importance of making available to the world of science and society all the accumulated knowledge to establish synergies and achieve real progress in a short space of time.
“Advances occur so quickly that the concepts developed in research still take time to be applied in the clinic,” said Peralta, who celebrated the intense activity of the Clinical Trials Unit has motivated the creation of a new unit, which will also be integrated into the Valdecilla Hospital care circuit and will go from 11 to 24 beds, following having carried out more than 300 clinical trials, more than 50 of them in phase 1, and earn the respect and trust of professionals and the industry.
In this regard, the CEO of Janssen, Luis Diaz-Rubiowho recalled that Valdecilla was one of the three hospitals selected at the national level to test its vaccine once morest COVID-19, considered that “in Spain we are leaders in chemical research and specifically in Cantabria Janssen has 28 clinical trials underway, so it ranks as the region with the highest number of trials per capita”, a good example that Valdecilla is “a center of reference for the development of sophisticated research projects”.
Cantabria in the national context
During the 1st Conference on Precision Medicine, the need to achieve the integration of new professional profiles in the hospital setting was also highlighted. “One of the biggest deficiencies of the health systems is that we do not have scientists recognized as such in the hospitals themselves,” he stressed. Ignatius Varela, researcher at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria and expert in genomics of tumor progression. “When we are together we are stronger”, highlighted the director of the Valdecilla Hospital, who claimed to be able to have “new professional profiles, such as mathematicians, physicists, biotechnologists, bioinformatics and biomedical professionals to improve the transfer of results”.
An idea also shared by the rest of the experts participating in the conference, such as the doctor in particle physics and vice-president of the CSIC, Jesus Mark of Lukethe virologist and researcher at the CSIC, Margaret of the Valley; the professor at the University of Cantabria and IDIVAL researcher, Jose Miguel Lopez-Higueraand the researcher and specialist in Digestive from Valdecilla, Paula Iruzubieta.
“We have to be aware of the richness, already proven, that the integration of different specialists supposes, who pose new questions to solve problems”
Margaret of Val, virologist and researcher at the CSIC
“We have to be aware of the richness, already proven, that involves the integration of different specialists, who raise new questions to solve problems,” said del Val, who explained to the audience the strengths of the Global Health Projectmultidisciplinary and with significant public-private collaboration, born in the face of the health emergency caused by the pandemic.
“What had never happened before happened,” he explained, “all the research groups turned to the search for solutions, more than 100 proposals were formulated in two days and donors from large private companies and individuals appeared,” an example of unity by a common cause that, he hoped, would be transferred to general health, beyond COVID.
Translation of results
Hospital Valdecilla has been one of the pioneers in integrating the massive sequencing of advanced tumorswhich has made it possible to offer more precise therapies to more than 1,500 cancer patients.
Beyond the advances experienced in the field of Oncology, the spearhead of the development of Precision Medicine, Valdecilla is making significant progress in other areas. Like in rare diseaseswith the creation of a specialized unit in which specific studies of new infrequent symptoms are carried out, offering better therapeutic options for patients.
In immunology, the Cantabrian hospital is the first in the world to have the most advanced equipment for diagnosis of autoimmune diseases. A unique device capable of studying up to 15 types of autoantibodies simultaneously in a single sample and that the hospital’s specialists are helping to perfect in collaboration with the manufacturer.
Public-private cooperation is one of the great strengths of the Cantabrian Precision Medicine strategy and is already materializing in the form of knowledge exchange, shared development and donation of equipment, as in the case of the Opentron super robot donated during the pandemic to the Valdecilla Microbiology Laboratory and that it is capable of performing up to 2,400 PCRs per day.
