Barcelona, June 02, 2020.- A VHIO researcher has won funding from the CRIS Foundation for her project to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Raquel Pérez-López, principal investigator of the Radiomics Group at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, is one of just three winners, including another researcher from Barcelona.
Dr. Pérez-López has been selected for the CRIS Research Talent program, one of the two programs on offer as part of the 1st CRIS Research Programs as part of its fight against cancer. The aim is to promote what is still a rare figure in Spain – medical researchers, who are nevertheless very important for developing new cancer treatments. Dr. Pérez-López will now benefit from a five-year, 400,000-euro funding program.
To improve our knowledge of cancer, researchers must have a degree of stability, together with resources allowing them to work in leading centers. Giving them the means they need directly benefits patients, who will be able to have new and ever-improving treatments. That is why the CRIS Foundation has set up its Research Programs.
“Receiving this program is a great boost for my career as a medical researcher,” said Dr. Pérez-López. “This grant will allow me and my team to find out more about cancer and improve cancer treatment by applying precision imaging.” Specifically, her project will focus on seeking ways of improving the current imaging techniques used in both the diagnosis and monitoring of cancer. Another aim is to combine these images with genome data. “We hope that in this way it will be possible to identify the patients who will respond to immunotherapy and those who will not,” added Dr. Pérez-López.
Together with Dr. Pérez-López, two other researchers from Barcelona will benefit from this first program. Dr. Clara Montagut of Hospital del Mar in Barcelona will use the funding for a project to improve colorectal cancer treatment, and Dr. David Olmos of the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) will focus his research on metastatic prostate cancer. Both Dr. Montagut and Dr. Olmos have been selected in the second type of program this year, the CRIS Excellence Program, which promotes researchers with great potential who have projects capable to transforming the picture for cancer.
The VHIO would like to thank both of them and we would also like to thank the CRIS Foundation for the support it has given us with the award of CRIS Research Talent Program money to Dr. Pérez-López. Its commitment to promote research and help develop emerging researchers is important in helping us to move forward in the right direction to continue improving cancer treatment.
You can access the original press release from the CRIS Foundation against cancer on these awards at the following link.
