The CRIS Foundation against cancer awards two researchers from the Cima University of Navarra

The CRIS Against Cancer Foundation has awarded two grants from its "CRIS Research Programs 2023" to Sara Labiano and Virginia Laspidea, researchers from the Advanced Therapies for Pediatric Solid Tumors Group at Cima University of Navarra. 

Dr. Sara Labiano (Cáseda, 1987) has received the CRIS "Emerging Talent Leader" Program for the development of a radio-immunotherapy project in pediatric brain tumors. "This work is aimed at developing effective therapies for diffuse midline glioma. To this end, we intend to use cutting-edge therapies to study the tumor microenvironment and advance in the development of combined treatments that can be applied in the treatment of children with these tumors," explains Dr. Labiano, a researcher in the Solid Tumors Program at Cima, whose activity is integrated into the Cancer Center Clínica Universidad de Navarra.

Dr. Virginia Laspidea (Burgui, 1995) has started a postdoctoral stay at the University College London (UK), thanks to the CRIS "Out-back" Program. This program promotes the training of Spanish scientists abroad and facilitates their return to continue their research career in Spain. "Our study focuses on improving the treatment of sarcomas, aggressive tumors that mainly appear in children and adolescents. In recent years, proton radiotherapy is being used to reduce toxicities secondary to radiotherapy. However, there is still room for improving its antitumor effect, so in this project we propose to combine it with immunotherapy, including CAR-T cells and oncolytic adenoviruses," adds Virginia Laspidea.

Science Day 2024

The awards ceremony was the closing event of the CRIS Science Day, a scientific symposium that brought together leading national and international experts in cancer research. Among them was Dr. Bruno Paiva, director of the Myeloma Group at Cima, who received the CRIS Excellence Program in 2020.