Dr. Joan Montaner, head of the Neurovascular Diseases group at Vall d'Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR), has received one out of the five grants of the Personalized Medicine Projects 2015 call, for coordinating the study "Pre-test-STROKE: Personalizing Reperfusion Therapeutic Strategies in Stroke". The aim of the study, endowed with 835.000 euros, is to develop a system to predict drug-response of each patient to the conventional treatment. The grant comes coinciding with the World Stroke Day, on Thursday 29th.Ischemic stroke is the leading cause of death among women in Spain, the second in Europe among men and women, and one of the main causes of permanent disability in adults worldwide. In this disease, the time of diagnosis and reaction is crucial because the thrombolytic treatment with t-PA must be administered within the 4,5 hours of the ischemic stroke, in order to avoid the death of brain tissue and a fatal outcome. "Despite the proven efficacy of the conventional treatment, between the 3 and 5 per cent of patients suffer side effects such as brain bleedings that we could avoid, and between the 30 and 40 per cent of patients present disability because the treatment can't enhance the revascularization" says Dr. Montaner, assuring that other treatments could be considered instead.With this international study, VHIR researcher aims to find biomarkers of response to t-PA treatment to improve its efficacy and security. In other words, to apply personalized medicine combining pharmaco-proteomics and pharmaco-genetics techniques. All the biomarkers will be tested in a cohort of 3,000 t-PA treated patients from all over the world.The project has the support of some biotechs that could develop a diagnosis kit, based on blood test, in order to guide the thrombolytic treatment. In the study participate researchers from the Neurovascular Diseases research group, the Diabetes and Metabolism group, and the CIBBIM-Nanomedicine from VHIR, the Fundació Docència i Recerca Mútua Terrassa, the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol in Badalona, the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona, the hospitals Virgen del Rocío and Macarena in Sevilla, the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa, in Finland, and the Washington University of Sant Louis, in the United States.The world stroke day was promoted by the World Stroke Organization in 2006 to raise awareness of the disease, its prevalence, prevention and treatment, and to support research and assistance to survivors.