Working together – combining opposing therapies for the greater good
Co-funded with:
AECC
Cancer types:
Breast cancer
Project period:
–
Research institute:
Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
Award amount:
£198,316
Location:
Spain
Professor Marcos Malumbres and his team are trying to devise a new treatment protocol that will allow two cancer treatments with opposing effects to work together. This has the potential to greatly improve the outcome for patients with a wide variety of cancer.
Meet the scientist
Professor Marcos Malumbres received a PhD in Biology and has always been attracted by Nature and everything related to human beings, from disease to philosophy. In fact, he studied some years of Philosophy in his free time. He also loves reading (especially non-fiction), music and painting.
The science
Classic chemotherapy targets cells that divide rapidly, such as cancer cells. Another successful cancer treatment relies on the inhibition of the cell cycle – they stop cells from dividing rapidly. Both approaches can be effective against cancer, but up to now they haven’t been used together because of their opposing effects. This is a major problem because the standard-of-care for many cancers still is classic chemotherapy.
Professor Malumbres is now trying to find a way to allow the combination of cell cycle inhibitors and classic chemotherapy. He and his team are investigating how cell cycle inhibitors impact tumour cells that recover from chemotherapy. Combining these two opposing therapies could improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy in several types of cancer.
This project was co-funded by the AECC.
There will be no new treatments without new discoveries. Big steps entirely depend on basic discoveries. This has been demonstrated over and over in our history.
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