Research grant on gastric cancer for the physician of Medical Oncology at Arnau Hospital and researcher at IRBLleida, Robert Montal

The Merck Salud Foundation has awarded a grant of € 30,000 to develop a research project in the area of ​​immuno-oncology to the Medical Oncology practitioner of the Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital (HUAV) and researcher of the research group of biomarkers in cancer (GReBiC ) of the Lleida Biomedical Research Institute (IRBLleida), Robert Montal Roura. Research will focus on providing response and resistance biomarkers to immunotherapy in order to offer personalized treatment to people with advanced gastric cancer.

Specifically, the research will analyze samples from patients treated at the HUAV for gastric adenocarcinoma. The research team is made up of the researchers from the GReBiC group at IRBLleida, Eva Parisi and Anabel Sorolla, the HUAV Pathological Anatomy specialist, Felip Vilardell, and the HUAV Medical Oncology doctor, Joel Veas.

"This help will allow us to understand better why some patients with gastric cancer respond positively to immunotherapy; in the same way that it will allow us to seek mechanisms to sensitize the tumors that are intrinsically resistant in these types of treatments" the researcher explained.

The Merck Research Grants are intended to finance unpublished research projects presented for research personnel who carry out their research in Spain in a period of one to three years. In the case of the immuno-oncology area, 51 proposals were presented and the jury highlighted the proposal of the Lleida team.