Vanguardia Science Award

Pancreatic cancer is usually asymptomatic in its early stages, which makes it difficult to diagnose early and is often not detected until more advanced stages, when the disease has caused metastasis. Early diagnosis would improve the prognosis as patients could undergo surgery, which is currently the only option for curing this tumor. Neus Martínez from the Institute Hospital del Mar d’Investigacions Mèdiques (IMIM) and Pilar Navarro from the Institute d’Investigacions Biomèdiques de Barcelona (IIBB-CSIC) conducted a study with a cohort of nearly 200 patients and identified a biomarker, the protein AXL, for the most common form of pancreatic cancer. When found in high amounts in blood plasma, it indicates that there are already malignant cells. This discovery paves the way for early detection of this tumor through a blood test.

When tissue is damaged, cells enter a senescent state: they stop dividing and giving rise to new cells, and begin to secrete substances that activate the immune system, causing it to eliminate them and begin to repair the damaged tissue. However, as we age, the number of senescent cells increases and they can accumulate in different organs, contributing to the development of age-related diseases. Inés Marín, researcher at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), has shown that senescent cells activate the immune system in a more intense and persistent way than other types of cells,

Between 20-40% of solid tumors develop brain metastases. These are difficult to treat because the blood-brain barrier that surrounds and protects the brain prevents drugs from reaching the tumor cells. Therefore, they are treated with radiotherapy. Some patients also develop resistance to this treatment, leading to relapses. Biologist Cátia Monteiro has identified a molecular mechanism of resistance to radiotherapy. This discovery allows for a detectable biomarker in blood that identifies which patients will respond to treatment and avoids treating those who will not or will stop responding over time. Additionally, the researcher has found that patients who would not initially respond can be treated with a drug that makes them sensitive to radiotherapy again.

Only in 2019, three times more scientific studies were published on male erectile dysfunction than on female reproduction in general. In fact, one in four causes of female infertility is unknown, compared to one in ten in men. Elvan Böke (right in the photo) and Aida Rodríguez have set out to tackle this bias in research and have focused on understanding the mechanisms that allow eggs to preserve their fertility for longer. By studying the changes that occur in the egg at the time of ovulation and the preservation of the genetic material, they hope to find new ways to preserve the fertility of women and improve the success rate of assisted reproduction techniques.

Plastic pollution is one of the greatest environmental challenges of the 21st century, especially for seas and oceans. Federica Bertocchini, a researcher at the Margarita Salas Biological Research Center (CIB-CSIC), has discovered that the larva of the wax worm, Galleria mellonella, is capable of quickly degrading these waste materials. According to the results presented in Nature Communications, this lepidopteran has two enzymes in its saliva that allow it to break down polyethylene, the most widely used type of plastic in packaging due to its low cost and high resistance and durability. Other groups have already shown that this invertebrate can also degrade polystyrene, paving the way for its use in plastics made up of mixtures of polymers. The next step is to establish the amount of enzymes necessary to decompose a certain amount of plastic and produce them on a large scale.

During the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, children were one of the groups that had to follow prevention measures for a prolonged period of time. One of these measures was the mandatory use of masks in school, both in the classroom and on the playground, for children 6 years and older. Clara Prats led a study with a multidisciplinary team, made up of pediatricians, public health specialists, statisticians and physicists, to evaluate the effectiveness of this measure in schools in Catalonia in the fall of 2021. They followed 600,000 children between 3 and 11 years old, distributed in 28,500 bubble groups. They analyzed 13,404 index cases and evaluated the transmission of the virus within their respective bubble groups. The study, published in BMJ Archives of Disease in Childhood, concluded that the mandatory use of masks in schools did not generate a significant reduction in the transmission of COVID-19 in schools.

Pancreatic cancer is a tumor that usually has a poor prognosis and whose incidence is increasing in Western countries, both in men and women. It has a 5-year survival rate below 9% and is already the seventh leading cause of cancer-related death in the world. Núria Malats's research focuses on finding biomarkers that allow for early diagnosis, when the disease is still asymptomatic. In a study published in BMJ Gut, she has identified a set of microorganisms belonging to the gut microbiota, mainly bacteria and also some archaea, that, when present in a certain combination, are indicators of pancreatic cancer, both in early and advanced stages. The next step is to check if this bacterial cocktail is already present before patients develop the disease and design an early screening test.