Part of the new managing team at CNIO. From the left: Óscar Llorca; Marisol Soengas; managing director José Manuel Bernabé; Francisco X. Real; Fernando Peláez, acting scientific director; Raúl Rabadán; Núria Malats; Sandra Rodríguez; Óscar Fernández-Capetillo, and Anna González Neira. / CNIO
Raúl Rabadán, who will start as scientific director next May 1st: "the Plan marks a new era, a scientific, institutional and organisational overhaul, at a time of transformation for the institution”.
The new strategy boosts research in the areas currently contributing the most to improving cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment: computational biology, large-scale genomics and immunotherapies, and strengthens clinical research.
Two new research programmes are being created, led by Núria Malats and Fátima Al-Shahrour, two globally highly-respected researchers in their respective fields. Óscar Fernández-Capetillo, Óscar Llorca y Francisco X. Real will lead the other programmes
The management at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Spain’s leading cancer research centre and one of the most productive globally, presented the Centre’s new Action Plan for 2026 to staff today. The plan was unanimously approved by CNIO’s Board of Trustees last December.
The new Plan, presented by the Centre’s acting scientific director, Fernando Peláez and the managing director, José Manuel Bernabé, proposes an ambitious new strategy for CNIO. It incorporates new areas of cancer research and focuses research potential to keep the Centre at the forefront of global science.
Raúl Rabadán, who will join CNIO as scientific director on May 1st, took part in this meeting. He explained that he is taking on this responsibility “to lead a period of scientific, institutional and organisational renewal at a very complex time for the institution”.
“The priority is to strengthen what works and improve what can be improved to address the current challenges of cancer research with the best tools,” he added.
Rabadán has stated that the Centre is built on a very solid scientific foundation and has emphasised that CNIO’s main asset is its top-level international team of researchers, who will now work within a more stable and competitive framework.
“CNIO is a strategic institution for Spain and for Europe, and my commitment is for CNIO to emerge from this stage as a more modern and internationally relevant public cancer research institution.”
Three major research divisions
The new Plan will channel CNIO’s resources towards areas that are currently driving the most significant improvements in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment: computational biology, large-scale genomics, immunotherapies and a patient-centred approach that is essential for personalised and precision treatments.
There will be three major divisions that will expand the centre’s research activity: Basic and Translational Research; Clinical Research; and Scientific-Technological Innovation Platforms. Full interaction between the three divisions will be guaranteed. For Rabadán, “the integration of genomics, computational biology, artificial intelligence and clinical research is essential for true precision oncology.”
Basic and translational research: two new programmes
The Molecular Oncology Programme will be led by Óscar Fernández-Capetillo. Proteins and their alterations are studied in the Structural Biology Programme, led by Óscar Llorca. Cells and their interactions with the immune system are tackled by the Tumour Biology and Immunology Programme, led by Francisco X. Real. The Precision Genomics and Populations Programme focuses on the perspective of the patient and society.
“Cancer will be tackled at all scales: from the molecular alterations in each patient to its impact on large populations,” said Rabadán.
The Precision Genomics and Populations Programme is a brand-new programme, which will be led by Núria Malats. This team will investigate the genetic and environmental factors that influence the risk of cancer and response to treatments. By reinforcing these lines, CNIO aims to strengthen its reputation as a leading institution in Europe in the acquisition and analysis of large-scale genomic data for cancer research.
Another new programme, Computational and Systems Biology, will position CNIO as a centre of excellence in biocomputing and in the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data analysis to the study of cancer. Fátima Al-Shahrour will head up this programme.
Four new groups, with more mathematics, biocomputing and AI
Four research groups [AM1] will be created, associated with the new programmes: Mathematical Genomics, led by Rabadán; Human Population Genomics, directed by Anna González-Neira; Genomic Editing, headed up by Sandra Rodríguez and Biocomputing and Artificial Intelligence, led by Al-Shahrour.
Their research will be supported by two innovative technology platforms: a Biocomputing and Artificial Intelligence platform; and a Genomic Innovation platform, which will offer advanced services to researchers inside and outside of CNIO.
“Biocomputing and artificial intelligence are already a central tool in cancer research,” Rabadán stated, and he anticipated that this “will help stablishing CNIO as a European centre of excellence for large-scale genomic data analysis, leading to earlier diagnoses, more personalised treatments and better risk assessment.”
Science and management: aligned and transparent
CNIO’s new Action Plan ensures the “complete alignment between the management and scientific directions” and that transparency and efficiency in the use of public resources will be prioritised.
Equally essential for CNIO is the training of young scientists, which is overseen by Marisol Soengas, head of the Dean’s Office and leader of the Melanoma Group at CNIO.
The new scientific management team
- Raúl Rabadán. Joining the centre from Columbia University in New York City, Rabadán is the newly appointed scientific director who will lead the Mathematical Genomics Group at CNIO. The group will model tumour evolution in patients, develop artificial intelligence methods for identifying functional mutations in the cancer genome and study the connection between viruses and cancer, among other projects.
- Óscar Fernández-Capetillo heads up the Genomic Instability Group, which has discovered the role played by a type of genomic damage, replicative stress, in cancer and ageing. This line of research led to a new anti-tumour compound that was licensed for clinical development. More recently, the group has been investigating drug resistance mechanisms and also exploring the molecular basis of other pathologies, such as neurodegenerative diseases.
- Francisco X. Real leads the Epithelial Carcinogenesis Group, which studies the molecular basis of pancreatic and bladder cancer. Real’s group has recently discovered the mechanism by which a genetic variant increases the risk of pancreatic cancer. He also chairs the Pancreatic Cancer Research Alliance (ALIPANC), which encompasses 58 multidisciplinary research teams throughout Spain.
- Fátima Al-Shahrour, until now head of the Bioinformatics Unit at CNIO, has contributed to structuring bioinformatics in Spain and embedding it into the Spanish healthcare system. She is an expert in the study of cancer from a genomic perspective, and she develops computational methods for precision medicine and for interpreting genomic information. She is also co-director of the Master’s in Bioinformatics and Data Science in Precision Personalised Medicine and Health at the Carlos III Health Institute.
- Óscar Llorca is head of the Macromolecular Architecture and Function Group. He uses cryo-electron microscopy to understand the role of relevant macromolecular complexes in cancer. His group has discovered how key proteins for cell growth act and also shown mechanisms whereby the cell detects and repairs DNA damage.
- Núria Malats heads up the Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Group. She specialises in factors that influence the onset and progression of cancer. She has found a molecular signature for microorganisms in faeces that can predict the risk of pancreatic cancer. She has also led national and international research consortia with hundreds of members and co-leads the European project PANCAID, to develop a liquid biopsy for early detection of pancreatic cancer.
- Marisol Soengas leads the CNIO Melanoma Group. Her most important findings include the development of the ‘MetAlert’ system, which can visualise how melanoma cells prepare the ground for metastasis through ‘dissemination routes’ to enable the subsequent spread of the disease. More recently, she has discovered how melanoma and other tumours manage to hide and resist immunotherapy The research carried out by her group led to the creation of the Spanish spin-off Highlight Therapeutics, which has developed the BO-112 compound, the first cancer drug candidate developed through CNIO research to reach patient studies.