IBEC senior researcher Pere Roca-Cusachs has been awarded an ERC Proof of Concept Grant. This is a prestigious grant awarded by the European Research Council to explore the commercial and societal potential of research projects carried out at European institutions. Roca-Cusachs’ project, INTROPY, focuses on the inhibition of mechanotransduction as a potential therapy against cancer or fibrosis.
Pere Roca-Cusachs Soulere, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona (UB) and Head of the Cellular and Molecular Mechanobiology group at IBEC, has been awarded an ERC Proof of Concept Grant. This prestigious grant is awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) and aims to explore the commercial and societal potential of research projects that are or have been funded by the ERC. Applicants use this type of funding to test the feasibility of scientific concepts, explore business opportunities or prepare patent applications.
Roca-Cusachs and postdoctoral researcher Mamatha Nijaguna’s project, called INTROPY, focuses on inhibiting mechanotransduction as a new strategy for cancer therapy. Mechanotransduction is the process by which cells translate mechanical changes into biological responses, regulating processes such as embryonic development, tumour progression and wound healing.
A common mechanistic alteration is the stiffening of tissues that occurs, for example, in cancer and facilitates faster tumour growth. In this context, Roca-Cusachs’ team has identified a key interaction between two proteins essential for mechanotransduction and is proposing a therapeutic approach to inhibit this process by blocking these target proteins.
Through various screening tests, the researchers have identified six molecules with great potential to act on these proteins. The INTROPY project will validate these results and provide proof of concept of their potential for cancer treatment, both in vitro and in mouse models.
This innovative approach has the potential to transform cancer therapy and provide new insights into the role of mechanistic signals in disease progression.
If the project is successful, the researchers hope to establish a spin-off company to take the development of these drugs to the clinical stage. This could lead to the first mechanoinhibitor drug of its kind, with potential applications in the treatment of cancer (with a focus on breast and pancreatic cancer) and other diseases characterised by mechanical stress, such as fibrosis.
