The CRIS Foundation against cancer, internationally recognised for its commitment to both paediatric and adult cancer research, has presented its prestigious 2024 CRIS Research Programmes. These highly competitive grants support leading cancer researchers and their projects, providing five years of funding (1.25M€ in total for all projects) that will enable research teams to conduct their work under excellent conditions. Dr Biola M. Javierre, head of the 3D Chromatin Organisation Group at the Josep Carreras Institute, is one of the two researchers that has received the CRIS Excellence Award. With this grant, she will study resistance mechanisms in leukaemia. At the ceremony, held on 10 April, Dr Javierre expressed her gratitude to the CRIS Foundation against cancer and its members for defending that research, including basic research, is the first step towards curing cancer.

The awards ceremony took place alongside the 2025 CRIS Scientific Symposium, which gathered leading national and international experts in oncology and haematology in Madrid. The event addressed recent advances in cancer biomarkers, which are key in the revolution of diagnosis and treatment of the disease, and the basis for new personalised therapies. The symposium also featured active participation from patients through roundtable discussions and meetings with medical and research professionals, highlighting the importance of incorporating the patient perspective into scientific decision-making processes.

Resistance in Leukaemia: the project to be developed by Dr Javierre’s group

The CRIS Excellence Programme will enable Dr Javierre’s group to study the development and occurrence of relapses in B-cell lymphoblastic leukaemia. Studying relapse in this type of leukaemia is of critical importance, as Dr Javierre pointed out during the award ceremony: “Around 50% of adult patients diagnosed with this type of leukaemia experience relapse. And, unfortunately, 90% of those who relapse do not survive the disease. This bleak picture is very similar in children.”

Researchers have described silent changes in the DNA associated with this type of cancer and the risk of relapse. Over the next five years, Dr Javierre’s group will analyse these silent genetic alterations, aiming to facilitate the diagnosis of this cancer and to uncover clues about its progression, which are key for patient treatment. According to Dr Javierre, her ultimate goal is “to identify new biomarkers to predict which patients are likely to relapse, to develop new therapeutic targets to prevent relapse, and, if a relapse occurs, to be able to treat it effectively.”