2023-10-30 15:05:47
In 18 Spanish hospitals, when a patient with brain metastasis undergoes surgery, he can donate a small part of his brain to the first repository of live samples of brain metastases in the world, based at the CNIO.
Is a pioneering collection in the world created to accelerate the search for therapies against brain metastasis, a disease that affects up to 30% of all systemic cancer patients.
It is a valuable tool, since the samples are preserved alive, in cultures in which the cells continue to behave in a similar way to how they did in the organism.
Its creators, CNIO researchers Manuel Valientehead of the Brain Metastasis Group, and Eva Ortega-Paindirector of the Biobank, expose in the magazine Trends in Cancer the advantages of the collection, called RENACER (acronym for National Brain Metastasis Network), which in just three years has brought together samples from more than 150 patients.
Its great peculiarity, and what makes RENACER a valuable tool for the international scientific community, is that the samples are preserved alive, in cultures in which the cells continue to behave in a similar way to how they did in the body.
A living biobank
“We have built a living biobank,” write Valiente and Ortega-Paíno. And this feature can be “transformative not only for research, but also for the design of clinical trials, especially when they focus on unmet clinical needs, such as brain metastasis.”
Research contracts have already been signed to exploit cultures derived from patients as avatars, to generate biomarkers of sensitivity or resistance to drugs
That the cells are alive allows, for example, to study their response to specific drugs. RENACER opens the possibility of creating avatars of each patient, to identify the best therapeutic options in a personalized way.
“Research contracts have already been signed to exploit organotypic cultures derived from patients as avatars, to generate biomarkers of sensitivity or resistance to specific drugs,” the authors explain in Trends in Cancer.
RENACER hospitals work as a network to transfer research results to patients as fast as possible. In fact, thanks to this network there are already two clinical trials underway, which will determine the ability of two biomarkers to discriminate the cases in which radiotherapy – a technique with side effects – will be effective.
The challenge of keeping samples alive
The requirement that samples be live is not easy to meet, as it requires sophisticated logistical deployment. The samples leave the operating room in a special container, in their culture medium at between 4 and 8 degrees Celsius.
In less than 24 hours they must arrive at the CNIO biobank in Madrid, where they are processed, organotypic cultures are carried out, and they are divided into aliquots that are stored as samples for future research. They are also analyzed with various techniques and sequenced, to extract the greatest possible amount of information from them. All data are entered into a database open to the international scientific community.
In less than 24 hours they must arrive at the biobank, where they are processed, organotypic cultures are carried out, and they are divided into aliquots that are stored for future research.
“This happens a few years after the project was launched,” says Valiente. “It is a strategy that helps improve both knowledge and diagnosis and treatment options, but also brings together all the actors involved: patients, basic researchers, chemical researchers, healthcare personnel and the biobank.”
The patients, “donors during difficult neurosurgery of brain metastasis, have an essential role and we firmly believe that it is essential to empower them,” the researchers explain. GEPAC (Spanish Group of Cancer Patients) is also part of RENACER.
The III General Assembly of RENACER It takes place on October 30 at the Ramón Areces Foundation, in Madrid, an institution that also finances the project “National Brain Metastasis Network: Implantation, Development and Coordination.”
Reference:
Manuel Valiente, Eva Ortega-Paino. “Updating cancer research with patient-focused networks”, Trends in Cancer (2023)
Rights: cancer, brain, metastasis, cells, treatments, drugs
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