From left: Francisco X. Real and Eleonora Lapi (Epithelial Carcinogenesis Group); Nabil Djouder (Growth Factors, Nutrients and Cancer Group); Gonçalo Bernardes (Translational Chemical Biology Group); and Solip Park (Computational Cancer Genomics Group), at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO). / MadMoviex. CNIO.
Gonçalo Bernardes, Nabil Djouder, Francisco X. Real and Manuel Valiente lead projects on leukaemia, liver cancer, bladder cancer, metastasis and new therapies targeting oncogenic proteins.
Solip Park, head of CNIO’s Computational Cancer Genomics Group, participates in a consortium to study human tumor suppressor genes.
The projects were selected under the 2026 Health Research and CaixaImpulse Health Innovation calls, which received a combined total of 1,249 proposals.
Gonçalo Bernardes, Nabil Djouder, Francisco X. Real and Manuel Valiente, researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), have secured five grants from “la Caixa” Foundation under its 2026 biomedical research and innovation funding calls.
Three of the projects have received a combined €1.9 million through the Health Research Call. The other two were selected for CaixaImpulse Health Innovation, a programme designed to accelerate the translation of biomedical innovations into clinical practice.
Separately, CNIO is also a consortium partner alongside the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia in the project Massive scale experimental quantification of variant effects in human tumor suppressor genes, led by the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). Solip Park, head of CNIO’s Computational Cancer Genomics Group, represents CNIO in the consortium.
New approaches to leukaemia and targeting KRAS
Gonçalo Bernardes, head of CNIO’s Translational Chemical Biology Group, has secured funding for two projects.
The first, selected under the Health Research Call and awarded approximately €500,000, focuses on acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). The team will investigate how the organisation of cellular components changes in leukaemia cells, particularly those with alterations affecting the NPM1 protein, to identify compounds that could interfere with the mechanisms that drive this blood cancer.
The second project, funded by CaixaImpulse, proposes a new strategy to eliminate oncogenic proteins such as mutant KRAS, which is found in several types of cancer. Rather than simply inhibiting their activity, the researchers will develop small molecules capable of inducing localised oxidative damage that promotes their degradation. The aim is to open up new treatment avenues and overcome mechanisms of resistance to existing therapies.
The research is being conducted in collaboration with Javier Bonet-Aleta, of the University of Cambridge, and Cong Tang, of the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (GIMM) in Portugal.
How the nervous system influences liver cancer
Nabil Djouder, head of CNIO’s Growth Factors, Nutrients and Cancer Group, has received €500,000 through the Health Research Call to investigate how signals from the nervous system and metabolic stress influence the liver’s immune defences.
The research focuses on communication between these signals and macrophages, immune cells involved in the response to cancer. Understanding how macrophage function is altered could help identify new personalised therapeutic strategies to slow the progression of liver cancer.
Seeking to prevent bladder cancer from invading the muscle layer
Francisco X. Real, head of CNIO’s Epithelial Carcinogenesis Group, leads another project selected under the Health Research Call, with funding of approximately €900,000.
His research will investigate the role of smooth muscle cells in the progression of bladder cancer. When a tumour invades the bladder’s muscle layer, the disease becomes more aggressive and harder to treat.
The project aims to understand how tumour cells interact with cells in the muscle tissue and how these interactions promote invasion. The findings could help identify new therapeutic targets to prevent tumour progression.
The study is being conducted in collaboration with the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), with the participation of the Domingo Martínez Foundation.
Classifying metastases to guide personalised treatment
Manuel Valiente, head of CNIO’s Brain Metastasis Group, has received a CaixaImpulse grant to develop TheraCluster, a tool designed to improve the classification of patients with metastatic disease according to the molecular characteristics of their disease.
Metastases account for most cancer-related deaths and show considerable heterogeneity, even among patients whose primary tumours originated in the same tissue. This diversity makes it difficult to determine which treatments are most likely to be effective in each case.
TheraCluster aims to use molecular information to define distinct therapeutic subgroups that can guide personalised treatment selection. The project has been selected for Stage 2 of CaixaImpulse, which focuses on validating and developing technologies with potential clinical applications.
Five CNIO projects selected in highly competitive funding calls
In 2026, the “la Caixa” Foundation selected a total of 80 biomedical research and innovation projects from Spain and Portugal, allocating €32.4 million to the selected initiatives.
Three CNIO projects were selected under the Health Research Call, which received 800 proposals and awarded funding to 32 initiatives: 23 from Spanish institutions and nine from Portuguese institutions. Each project can receive up to €1 million to investigate how diseases arise and progress and to understand the biological mechanisms involved.
The other two CNIO projects received grants under the CaixaImpulse Health Innovation Call, which selected 30 initiatives from 449 proposals. The programme, developed in collaboration with Criteria Bio Ventures, aims to help turn research advances into new treatments, diagnostic tools and other healthcare solutions.
The two funding calls support different stages of biomedical research, from investigating the mechanisms underlying disease to validating technologies with the potential to reach patients.