We are building a bidirectional bridge between CNIO’s discoveries and patient care, turning mechanistic insights into clinically testable strategies and high-quality datasets that improve cancer outcomes.
Miguel Angel Quintela
The Clinical Research Programme aims to accelerate the translation of CNIO’s preclinical discoveries into benefits for patients. To this end, the Programme operates through five CNIO laboratories that are linked to tertiary hospitals via dedicated collaboration agreements.
The Programme currently maintains partnerships with the following hospitals: Hospital 12 de Octubre (Dr Luis Paz-Ares, lung cancer; and Dr Joaquín Martínez-López, haematological malignancies); Hospital Universitario La Paz (Dr Antonio Pérez, paediatric oncology); Hospital del Mar (Professor Luis Álvarez-Vallina, advanced cellular immunotherapy, coordinated with clinical production and translational capacities); Hospital Universitario de La Princesa (Dr Miguel Quintela-Fandino, breast cancer).
Our strategic goals are to develop and clinically validate innovative therapeutic concepts (including engineered cellular immunotherapies), to uncover mechanisms of drug sensitivity and resistance, and to enable precision oncology through robust biomarkers, longitudinal sampling, and integrated clinical–omics datasets. Recent milestones include: the translation of dual-targeted STAb-T and CAR-STAb-T platforms into first-in-human phase I testing (Cancer Immunotherapy Unit); clinically actionable therapeutic strategies in small-cell lung cancer, including drug synergy and T-cell engager development (Lung Cancer Unit); promoter methylation of BCMA and GPRC5D as novel mechanisms of resistance to immunotherapy in multiple myeloma (Haematological Malignancies Unit); the establishment of high-definition, longitudinal breast cancer cohorts to enable integrated analyses and co-clinical validation (Breast Cancer Unit); and the advancement of innovative cellular immunotherapies for paediatric malignancies, with translation into early-phase academic clinical trials (Pediatric Onco-Hematology Unit).