The Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, highlighted this Friday the Government’s commitment to promote, through science and innovation, personalized medicine and advanced cancer therapies.
To promote these treatments, as well as prevention and diagnosis strategies, the Ministry of Science and Innovation has allocated around 300 million euros between 2018 and 2021 to nearly 1,000 scientific projects on cancer, many in public-private collaboration, where more than 7,000 researchers work. To this investment are added the salaries to the personnel of the Government’s public science system.
This was explained by the minister during a visit to the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM-Hospital del Mar), in Barcelona. Coinciding with the World Cancer Day, Morant has met with the researchers from the IMIM-Hospital del Mar who lead, together with the Barcelona Biomedical Research Institute of the CSIC, a study for the early detection of pancreatic cancer, published in the journal eBioMedicine.
In the same way, he stressed the importance of this research, which has identified a new biomarker for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer most common, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, which is the third leading cause of cancer death in developed countries. In Spain, about 8,700 cases were registered in 2021.
This discovery makes it possible to advance in the detection of this type of cancer, for which until now there is no early detection biomarker. Morant has described the work as a “success of the excellent scientists of the public system of Science, Innovation and Technology of Spain” and has transferred the support of the Ministry to the project, which has received nearly 450,000 euros of investment through the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), an agency dependent on the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
PERTE for State-of-the-Art Health
During the meeting, the minister stressed that the public science system is focused on cancer research, which is a priority challenge for her Ministry. “Science is the hope against cancer”, remarked Morant, who recalled that, in order to promote precision medicine and advanced therapies against cancer and other pathologies, the Ministry of Science has launched the PERTE for State-of-the-Art Health.
This PERTE is a public-private collaboration instrument focused on transforming the health sector through science and innovation. “With this project, we are going to mobilize almost €1.5 billion in the next three years, in a public-private effort to achieve the most advanced medicine”, the minister pointed out.
Likewise, Morant has explained that, through the reform of the Science Law, Technology and Innovation, the Ministry of Science and Innovation will give “more stability to the personnel of the public system of science, technology and innovation, which will contribute to promoting research against diseases such as cancer”.
Science connection, collaboration against cancer
The fight against cancer is one of the challenges of the program Science and Innovation Missions, designed and managed by the CDTI. Through this program, the Government promotes and financially supports large strategic R&D projects whose objective is to contribute to the development of present and future missions that represent a social and economic challenge for Spain. Cancer research is also one of the five great missions that the European Union has set itself for this decade.
To promote collaboration in cancer research, in September 2021, Conexión Cancer was created. This is the largest scientific-technical collaboration network in Spain in the study of cancer, which brings together more than 500 researchers from 80 research groups on cancer and related areas, belonging to 17 centers of the CSIC, a body dependent on the Ministry of Science, which are distributed throughout the country.
With this initiative it is expected strengthen this strategic research area within the CSIC, positioning and making visible the organism as a key agent in the investigation of this complex pathology, which actually encompasses hundreds of different diseases. Along with strengthening the identity and visibility of the CSIC in oncology, it is expected that the synergies derived from the Cancer-Connection will allow an optimization of the use of cutting-edge technologies and the reinforcement of connections with the clinic and the industry.