Strategic objectives

• Develop new technologies and systems for personalized medicine, focused on identifying drugs selected based on tumor characteristics, biomarkers, and/or cancer stem cells as a universal target for aggressive tumors.
• Participate in national and international networks and projects in the field of cancer, with a focus on tumor biology, cancer stem cells, the immune tumor microenvironment, and preclinical cancer models, such as patient-derived xenografts (PDX).
• Strengthen national and international alliances and collaborations between the business, academic, and public health sectors.
• Promote scientific and technological excellence at the European level, establishing a fundamental framework for cancer-based studies.

Research lines

• Identification and characterization of novel biomarkers for early detection, therapy response, and the detection of cancer stem cells in various solid tumors.
• Development of liquid biopsy platforms for the isolation of circulating cancer stem cells for characterization and/or circulating cell-free tumor DNA as a marker for early cancer detection.
• Management of the National Registry of Familial Pancreatic Cancer (PanGen-Fam), including the biobank of samples and associated clinical data for the phenotypic and molecular characterization of families.
• Management of the screening program for high-risk individuals and development of new image analysis techniques and approaches (e.g., radiomics) for early detection.
• Identification of new genes, pathways, and/or variants (e.g., potentially pathogenic mutations) associated with cancer risk (e.g., pancreatic, gastric, colorectal, glioblastoma, and oligodendroglioma) using omics approaches, and their application in personalized medicine. Study of gene expression dysregulation in the aforementioned tumors.
• Characterization of the cellular niche and tumor microenvironment, with particular attention to immune cell infiltrates, such as tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs).
• Development of novel biomodels and in vitro and in vivo platforms to test and discover new therapies, such as metallodrugs, nanotechnology, siRNAs, and anti-CSC agents. Promoting the translation of new therapies to the clinic and participating in clinical trials with a translational component.