The CNIO researcher's project seeks to advance towards diet-based strategies to prevent and treat the most common type of liver cancer. The programme provides 1,250,000 euros in funding over five years.
"We are looking for dietary or pharmacological interventions that mimic the effect of calorie restriction," explains Efeyan, head of CNIO's Cellular Metabolism and Signalling Group.
Alejo Efeyan, head of the Metabolism and Cell Signalling Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), has been awarded a CRIS Excellence Programme by the CRIS Cancer Foundation, aimed at “researchers with groundbreaking projects, with high clinical impact potential”.
The project led by Efeyan, Dissection of protective molecular players in dietary restriction and their modulation against hepatocellular carcinoma, will receive 1,250,000 euros in funding over five years.
Ultimately, the project seeks to advance towards diet-based strategies to prevent and treat the most common type of liver cancer among the population at risk.
Specifically, Efeyan’s group at CNIO will investigate the molecular factors involved in the benefits of calorie restriction interventions, aiming to pave the way for a clinical avenue for therapeutic use in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and the at-risk population.
This type of tumour is closely associated with body weight, partly because the chronic overload of nutrients causes metabolic damage and hepatocyte dysfunction. In this regard, several preclinical and epidemiological studies have demonstrated that dietary restriction can be effective in preventing and treating hepatocellular carcinoma. However, exploiting these beneficial effects in clinical practice is complex, both because of the difficulty in adhering to this type of diet and due to the lack of knowledge about the molecular and metabolic factors involved.
The project funded by the CRIS Cancer Foundation proposes that nutrient and hormone detection and signalling pathways in hepatocytes mediate the beneficial effects of dietary restriction, and that detailed analysis of specific factors in these pathways may pave the way for designing drugs that mimic dietary restriction.
The Cris Cancer Foundation explains that its programmes are evaluated by independent and external scientific committees, which allows them to “identify and support projects with the greatest potential to transform cancer approaches and accelerate the transfer of advances to patients”.
About the CRIS Cancer Foundation
The CRIS Cancer Foundation – Cancer Research & Innovation in Science – is an independent, apolitical, non-profit organisation with the goal of curing cancer through research with the support of civil society. It is based in Spain, the United Kingdom and France. It has funded projects in 107 research centres worldwide. In Spain, it has its own therapeutic and clinical trial units in major public hospitals.