Barcelona, May 29, 2020.- The first steps are being taken to validate a test to accurately select the right cancer patients to receive particular therapies. The ERA-PerMed, intended to clinically validate the RAD51predict test created by a research group from the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), has begun its work.
ERA-PerMed is a consortium consisting of five members and six associates, including two companies, and is coordinated by Dr. Violeta Serra, the principal investigator of the Experimental Therapeutics Group at the VHIO. Its first meeting was held virtually and included 40 researchers and doctors from Europe and Canada.
The project is cofunded by the European Commission as part of an innovative collaborative research projects in the field of personalized medicine. Entitled “RAD51predict: patient stratification based on DNA repair functionality for precision cancer medicine”, its aim is to clinically validate the test so that the most suitable cancer patients for each treatment can be accurately chosen. New possibilities for the test will also be explored and the prototype will be improved to make it easier to implement in clinical practice.
The RAD51predict test project, led by Dr. Alba Llop, of the VHIO’s experimental therapies group, works to find patients who can most benefit from PARP-inhibitor treatments by identifying the RAD51 protein which acts as a tumor biomarker. “The RAD51predict test makes it possible to identify breast and ovarian cancer patients who can benefit from these therapies accurately and quickly,” said Dr. Llop. “It also makes it possible to select patients for clinical trials that assess the effectiveness of PARP inhibitors in other types of tumor.”
In 2019, this project was chosen by the “la Caixa” Foundation for the first funding round of the CaixaImpulse program that aims to make it easier to set up companies or transfer agreements, as well as the translating of scientific knowledge from research centers, universities and hospitals, to society.
