CaixaResearch Advanced Oncology Research Program
The CaixaResearch Advanced Oncology Research Program accelerates the translation of cutting-edge science into tangible clinical benefits for cancer patients. Following its initial phase (2020–2023), the program was renewed for 2023–2025 and has now been extended through 2029.
With the long-term support of Fundació “la Caixa”, the program has strengthened VHIO’s position as a leading European center in precision oncology, early-phase clinical research, advanced molecular diagnostics, and translational innovation.
This sustained partnership has enabled the expansion of early-phase clinical activity and high-impact scientific research, while consolidating an integrated model in which precision diagnostics, translational science, therapeutic development, and data-driven oncology work together to accelerate patient benefit.
These advances are driven by the expertise of VHIO’s Early Clinical Drug Development, Cancer Genomics, Molecular Oncology, and Oncology Data Science (ODysSey) groups.
At the core of the program is the Research Unit for Molecular Therapy of Cancer (UITM) CaixaResearch, directed by Dr. Elena Garralda. In 2025, UITM managed 322 active phase I clinical trials, opened 85 new studies, treated more than 1,300 patients, and conducted over 740 first visits.
The unit continued to lead first-in-human and biomarker-driven trials evaluating targeted therapies, next-generation bispecific antibodies, and novel agents against previously intractable oncogenic drivers, consolidating VHIO’s leadership in precision therapeutics and early drug development.
The UNIQUE-CaixaResearch platform for single-cell and spatial transcriptomics has so far carried out 23 experiments across multiple research groups, advancing the understanding of tumor heterogeneity, microenvironment interactions, and treatment response.
The microscopy platform surpassed 700 hours of advanced imaging usage, while 37 researchers received hands-on training through VHIO Academy programs. Growing demand and strategic relevance reinforced the platform’s integration into VHIO’s long-term research infrastructure.
Complementary investments in computational infrastructure and data integration tools further accelerated VHIO’s digital transformation, enabling increasingly sophisticated multi-omic analyses to support precision oncology and clinical decision-making.
Subsequently, the Bioinformatics Unit, under Dr. Lara Nonell’s direction, applies the bioinformatic pipelines. Pipelines for processing single cell data have been developed using the Bioinformatic Unit workflow management system and incorporated into their computational cluster. These includes 10X Genomics software Cell Ranger to align reads and generate feature-barcode matrices and the R package Seurat (Hao et al., 2021) for quality control, normalization, cluster determination and annotation; and differential expression analysis. Other R packages have been also included to perform specific analyses such as CopyKat (Gao et al., 2021), to study copy number alterations in the cells and identify tumoral cells, or UCell (Andreatta and Carmona, 2021) to score gene signatures.
These pipelines have been developed in collaboration and applied to Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Group led by Dr. Alena Gros, focused on the study of TIL. They sequenced gene expression, protein expression and TCR repertoire from the same cells. Several patient samples have been processed throughout the single cell UNIQUE platform and single-cell library prepared and sent to external providers for sequencing. Sequencing data was then assessed using the developed pipeline.
VHIO Academy continued to strengthen scientific excellence and international visibility. In 2025, 17 VHIO-CaixaResearch Scientific Seminars were organized with national and international speakers while maintaining gender balance. Attendance averaged 78% capacity, reflecting strong engagement from the scientific community.
Together with fellowship and international recruitment initiatives, these activities further positioned VHIO as a hub for scientific exchange and talent attraction.
CaixaImpulse Innovation promotes the transfer of scientific knowledge to society by supporting the development of innovative products, services, and companies in the life sciences sector. The program helps biomedical projects validate their assets, define valorization and exploitation strategies, and advance toward clinical and market implementation.
At VHIO, CaixaImpulse initiatives continued to strengthen the pathway from scientific discovery to real-world application. Two CaixaImpulse Explore (Phase I) projects from the 2023 call, led by Dr. Ana Vivancos and Dr. Rodrigo Toledo, remained active during 2025.
Building on this momentum, Dr. Marcos Malumbres secured a CaixaImpulse Consolidate (Phase II) award in 2024 following earlier support from the Innovation Hub, exemplifying the strength of VHIO’s integrated innovation ecosystem. In 2025, an additional CaixaImpulse Consolidate project was awarded, further underscoring the maturity and growing impact of VHIO’s translational and commercialization pipeline.
