Translational Research Studies

Over the last decades, breast cancer has been classified in four subtypes and other molecular features. Several European research groups were involved in this process, from the initial studies in laboratories to large clinical trials. The leading goals were to predict the prognosis and improve the therapeutical regime for each patient.

Cancer is increasingly understood not solely as a genetic disease, but as a pathology shaped by its surrounding microenvironment. The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex and dynamic ecosystem composed of immune cells, stromal cells, blood vessels, extracellular matrix and signaling molecules that support tumor survival, growth, and resistance to therapy.

In the early 1920s Otto Warburg, one of the leading biochemists of the time, studying cellular energetics, discovered a surprising tumour phenotype, characterized by a very low energy yield, in the form of very high rates of lactic acid fermentation, not only in anoxia, but also in the presence of oxygen levels that do not compromise cellular respiration.

In 2018 ESCAT, a novel tool designed to enhance and standardize precision oncology, developed on the initiative of the ESMO Translational Research and Precision Medicine Working Group, has been presented. ESCAT employs data from massive sequencing (as next-generation sequencing analysis, NGS) to establish a hierarchy of genetic alterations in a tumor, thereby indicating those alterations that should be the primary focus of therapeutic action.

Organoids are three-dimensional cell cultures generated by multipotent adult stem cells or pluripotent (embryonic or induced in vitro) stem cells in the presence of an extracellular matrix that self-organize in tissue-like structures that partially reproduce features and function of the tissue of origin.

Brain tumours are among the cancers with the worst outlook and are hard to treat owing to factors such as inoperable locations in the brain and the difficulty of developing drugs that can cross the blood-brain barrier.