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• Key piece identified for slowing a colorectal cancer subtype

  02/08/2018

  Inhibiting the Jagged 1 protein in mice prevents the proliferation and growth of colon and rectal tumours. What is more, this approach to the disease permits the removal of existing tumours. This is the conclusion of a study led by the Molecular Mechanisms of Cancer and Stem Cells research group from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), directed by Dr Lluís Espinosa, who is also a member of CIBERONC (the Network Centre for Biomedical Research into Cancer), in collaboration with the Pathological Anatomy and Medical Oncology Units at Hospital del Mar, and the IDIBELL-Catalan Oncology Institute. The work has been published in Nature Communications.

  The researchers took tumours from patients and then implanted them into mice in order to analyse the role of this protein in cancer cell proliferation. Jagged 1 is essential for cancer cells due to its role in activating the so-called Notch cell-signalling pathway. Generally speaking, Notch inhibits cell differentiation, in other words, a cell's ability to become a mature cell that can no longer proliferate. In the case of colorectal tumours, the activation of this signalling pathway favours their proliferation and growth.

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• A new computational method for exploring the reuse of drugs

  11/07/2018

  Researchers led by Emre Guney of the research programme on Biomedical Informatics (GRIB), a joint programme of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), have developed a new computational method to reuse drugs that target biological pathways common to more than one disease.

  A significant percentage of marketed drugs are not effective in patients due to the complexity of the biological processes involved in diseases and genetic differences between people. Despite recent technological advances, the discovery of new effective treatments takes a long time and continues to be expensive. For this reason, the reuse of medicines, i.e., the use of existing drugs for other diseases, is a very interesting alternative to reduce the costs of drug development.

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