From the Laboratory to the Patient
From the Laboratory to the Patient
From what is discovered in the lab to what reaches the patient.
Without translational research, laboratory discoveries take between 10 and 15 years to reach patients. With specific funding for this stage—such as that provided by FERO Cancer—this time is significantly reduced.
How translational science works
How translational research works.
Scientific research in oncology operates in three phases. Basic research studies the biological mechanisms of cancer: how it originates, how it grows, and how it spreads. Clinical research tests treatments in patients through controlled trials. Translational research connects the two: it takes laboratory findings and converts them into clinical hypotheses that can be tested in patients.
It is the most difficult link to fund. Public funds are concentrated on basic research. The pharmaceutical industry enters the clinical phase when success is already within reach. The space in the middle—where the first patient trials are designed, where biomarkers are selected, and where it is decided if a line of research deserves to continue—is the space where FERO Cancer operates.
This is the model that Dr. Josep Baselga founded in 2001 and that FERO Cancer has developed for 25 years.
How translational science works
How long a treatment takes to reach the patient. And how FERO Cancer accelerates it.
The journey of a treatment begins in the laboratory, when researchers identify a biological mechanism that could be relevant to cancer. From there, there are years of basic experimentation, molecule design, testing in cellular and animal models, and finally the design of clinical trials in patients.
Each stage has its own timelines, resources, and barriers. Translational research acts as an accelerator at the most critical moment: when a laboratory discovery needs to be converted into a clinical hypothesis that justifies testing in patients.
FERO Cancer funds that moment. The most difficult. The most decisive. The one that determines whether a scientific discovery will one day reach patients.
Molecular diagnosis
Identifying the specific nature of each patient's cancer.
Not all cancers are the same. Two patients with the same diagnosis — breast cancer, for example — can have tumors with completely different molecular profiles. One may respond well to standard chemotherapy. The other may benefit from a specific targeted therapy that would have no effect on the first.
Molecular diagnosis allows this to be known before starting treatment. It makes it possible to avoid treatments that will not work. It allows access to specific therapies that would not have been considered without that diagnosis.
The FERO Molecular Diagnosis Units in the four partner centers apply this technology to thousands of patients every year. It is the most direct translation of translational research into real improvement in oncological care.