Institute of Cancer Molecular and Cellular Biology (USAL-CSIC)

The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is the largest Spanish public institution devoted to research, and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote research that will benefit all scientific and technological advance and to do so it collaborates with other Spanish and international institutions. According to its Statute (article 4), its mission is to foster, coordinate, develop and promote scientific and technological research, of a multidisciplinary nature, in order to contribute to advancing knowledge and economic, social and cultural development, as well as to train staff and advise public and private entities on this matter.

The Institute of Cancer Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCC) project was founded in 2004 to gather under one roof all internationally competitive research groups working towards the understanding of the cancer cell, on a basic level but also translational and clinical. To that effect, the Centre for Cancer Research adopted the structure of the Comprehensive Cancer Centres of the US, a model that has proven to encourage a multidisciplinary vision of the cancer cell while allowing for a quick translation of the research outcomes from the laboratory to the clinic.

Within the context of this aim, the specific goals of this centre are:

1. Create an environment that fosters research excellence to be able to compete on equal terms with other national and international cancer centres.
2. Encourage synergy in the cooperation between the basic, clinical and translational research labs.
3. Carry out a multidisciplinary study of the tumorigenic process on a basic, translational and clinical level.
4. Develop new diagnostic and prognostic tools to be applied on patients with cancer.
5. Set up technical and diagnostic facilities that can help with the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer and with the development of new therapies and anti-tumour treatments.
6. Encourage the interaction with other national and international cancer centres, but also with the biopharmaceutical industry.
7. Train specialised staff with a technical, graduate and post-doctoral background in molecular, translational and clinical oncology.

The main areas of research of the centre include: cell cycle analysis; RTK signalling pathways in cancer; cytoskeletal organisation and mechanisms in cancer; RAS signal transduction and its effectors and regulators; reactions to genotoxic damage; animal models in cancer, immunology and cancer; molecular pharmacology; cell death and cancer; development of new anti-tumour therapies; clinical and molecular analysis of solid tumours; oncohematology; molecular pathology; genomic, proteomic, coelomic and bioinformatic analysis of cancer; structural biology; molecular genetics of cancer.