"http://www.tv3.cat/marato/" 'La Marató de TV3' foundation "http://www.tv3.cat/marato/" has awarded 42 research projects in oncology that will receive more than 12 million euros raised in the 2012 edition. 4 of the granted projects will be jointly carried out at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR) and national and international research centers. Up to 79 researchers will work in the next 3 years in the design of new methods for prevention and diagnosis of cancer, and new therapies based on individualized medicine. The awards ceremony took place on Tuesday at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park. An international study on the resistance to chemotherapy Dr. Mileidys Pérez, researcher from the Molecular Pathology group at VHIR, coordinates the study “Vies de proliferació i supervivència en les cèl·lules mare del càncer resistents a quimioteràpia” (proliferation and survival pathways in cancer stem cells resistant to chemotherapy), which will be carried out together with the Regina National Cancer Institute of Rome, Italy. The project, awarded with 300.000€, will study the role of microRNAs to identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of patients with lung cancer. Genomic study of endometrial cancerDr. Jaume Reventós, head of the Research Unit in Biomedicine and Translational Oncology at VHIR, participates in the project “Estudi genomic per al maneig individualitzat del cancer d’endometri. Diagnòstic, pronòstic i tractament” (Genomic study for the individualized management of endometrial cancer. Diagnosis, prognosis and treatment). The project will be also investigated at the Lleida Biomedical Research Institute, Ramon y Cajal Hospital and MD Anderson Foundation in Spain. The goals of the project, which will be funded with 397,895€, are to identify specific molecular alterations of metastatic endometrial cancer to facilitate the diagnosis, and to characterize somatic alterations in combination with the use of pharmacological inhibitors with the aim at designing new individualized therapeutic strategies for these patients. Personalized nanomedicine for breast cancerDr. Ibane Abasolo, member of the CIBBIM-Nanomedicine Drug Delivery and Targeting group at VHIR and responsible of the Functional Validation and Preclinical Research Area, is one of the researchers of the project “Nanomedicina personalitzada per a cèl·lules mare de càncer de triple negatiu” (Personalized nanomedicine for triple negative cancer stem cells), awarded with 395,095€. Together with two researchers from the Biotechnology and Biomedicine Institute of the UAB and the Scientific Park of Barcelona, she will pre-clinically develop and validate different systems of drug delivery targeted to CD44/CXCR1 receptors, to combat triple negative breast cancers. This type of cancer has no detectable hormone receptors, no Her2/neu amplification and no targeted therapy.The new therapy could overcome multiple drug resistance of breast cancer stem cells. Proteins to detect fatty liver disease and hepatocellular carcinomaDr. Beatriz Mínguez, researcher from the Liver Diseases group at VHIR, participates in the study “Lipotoxicitat, esteatosi hepàtica i hepatocarcinoma: funció de la família de proteïnes mitocondrials armc10/armcx” (Lipotoxicity, fatty liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma: function of mitochondria’s family of proteins armc10/armcx). The project is funded with 398,687€, and will be also carried out by researchers from Universitat de Barcelona and the Spanish Network (CIBER) of Physiopathology of the Obesity and Nutrition. The aim of the study is to determine the role of these mitochondrial proteins in fatty liver and hepatocellular carcinoma, in order to understand the pathogenesis of this type of tumor and proposing genes for codifying the proteins described as biomarkers of these diseases. , [The 4 projects funded are endowed with a global amount of 1,48 million euros, of which 536.880 euros will be for VHIR]