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Pilar Caro Chinchilla, CNIO Biobank project manager (in the center), during the awards ceremony, with representatives of the jury and the industry./ GEPAC
Samples in the RENACER collection are essential to advance therapies against brain metastasis. Donations come from 19 hospitals in the network. It is a unique research infrastructure promoted by the CNIO, open to researchers from all over the world.
"RENACER is a successful strategy to do high-quality research and get the patients benefit from the results," says Manuel Valiente, head of the CNIO Brain Metastasis Group.
"This platform could eventually be used to generate patients' avatars, to identify the best therapeutic options against metastasis," says Eva Ortega-Paíno, scientific director of the CNIO Biobank.
The Spanish Cancer Patients Group (GEPAC) has awarded the “Social and Scientific Research in Oncology” prize to RENACER, the National Brain Metastasis Network promoted by the CNIO (Spanish National Cancer Research Center). RENACER is building the first collection of live human brain metastasis samples in the world, for the scientific community to use.
In between 10% and 30% of all systemic cancer patients, the tumor manages to cross the strong defensive barriers of the brain and generates a brain metastasis. How the tumor cells manage to reach the brain is still not well understood, and research is actively underway to block this phenomenon for which there are, for the time being, few treatment options.
RENACER, created two years ago by the Brain Metastasis Group and the CNIO Biobank, has grown to include 18 Spanish hospitals (see below) and the University Hospital Zurich.
Thanks to their donations a collection of more than 150 brain metastases samples is already in place, an essential resource to carry out basic and clinical studies that drive the development of therapies.
While there are other brain metastasis banks of fixed or frozen tissue samples, RENACER is the only organized network of live brain metastasis samples. Working from live samples allows for much better investigation of the phases of brain colonization, and to simulate organ function and cellular composition.
Putting patients first
“RENACER has demonstrated that it is a successful strategy to carry out high-quality research and get the results to patients as soon as possible,” says Manuel Valiente, head of the CNIO’s Brain Metastasis Group and RENACER’s research director.
RENACER has already enabled the launch of two clinical trials related to the efficacy of radiotherapy against brain metastasis.
“This is just two years after the project was launched,” adds Valiente. “It is a strategy that helps to improve knowledge as well as diagnostic and treatment options; also, it brings all the actors involved closer together: patients, basic researchers, chemical researchers, healthcare personnel and biobank.”
Collaboration to curb metastasis
RENACER operational structure works under strict protocols, helping to preserve the optimal viability conditions of the samples until they reach the CNIO Biobank.
Algorithms created by the CNIO Bioinformatic Unit help characterize the genetic patterns of the tumor cells. Also, a drug screening platform is used to predict the response of cancer cells to certain drugs, explains Eva Ortega-Paíno, scientific director of the CNIO Biobank, principal investigator of the project and director of management of RENACER. “This platform could be used as a patient avatar to identify the best therapeutic options,” she says.
The collaborative biobank infrastructure in cancer created by RENACER is open to all researchers and clinicians interested in brain metastasis, and has already become a national and international reference.
“The network is expected to keep growing in the coming years, catalyzing future and broader national and international collaborations that will provide a global network and insight into brain metastasis,” says Ortega-Paíno, scientific director of the CNIO Biobank.
The project “will help to improve the scope of the results, the scientific knowledge about the disease, leading to better diagnoses and treatments,” explains Pilar Caro, project manager at the CNIO Biobank, who represented RENACER at the award ceremony.
The samples received are accompanied by standardized clinical information that will allow epidemiological, clinical and basic studies to be carried out. Researchers can work with the data and samples to design their experimental studies using this information collected in the process.