Héctor Peinado, a researcher at the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) in Madrid, received this Saturday, in the celebration of Santo Tomás de Aquino, the XII “Doctores Diz Pintado” National Cancer Research Award. His studies aim to better understand metastases in order to develop new therapies and offer tools to determine the risk of suffering from them.
This Saturday you join the select list of young researchers in the field of cancer who have received the Doctores Diz Pintado Award. What does it mean for you to receive this award?
When they told me it was a surprise because it is a very competitive prize, so I am honored and grateful that my career has been evaluated and they have awarded it to me. It is, honestly, a recognition of my career and an honor.
What is the objective of your research?
In my laboratory we work to understand the mechanisms of tumor metastasis, mainly extracellular vesicles, exosomes, which are like a metastasis fertilizer. We are looking at the mechanisms of metastatic spread, especially in melanoma, but lately we have also been working on breast cancer and lung cancer. The ultimate aim of my laboratory is the development of new therapies, that is, to see the metastasis mechanisms to understand which molecules are involved and to develop new therapies that can block them and, on the other hand, the development of new tests that can help us to predict the risk of metastasis.
Have you been researching in this field for a long time?
I settled in Spain in 2015, but I started working on this topic two years before in New York. When I was in the United States, I contacted the CNIO to see if they were interested in this research, I spoke with Manuel Serrano and I finally got a position as a Ramón y Cajal researcher for five years and now I am about to make the leap to senior researcher. so this recognition is a potential step towards achieving that.
It seems that in recent years many advances have been made in the field of cancer, is that right?
Yes, the problem we have on the subject of cancer is that each type of tumor is different, so understanding the mechanisms involved in the generation of the tumor, its progression and its metastasis is usually differential. It is a very complex issue, although it is true that much progress has been made in recent years and there are very effective therapies, for example in breast cancer, and that was not the case fifteen years ago. In the case of melanoma, which is the one that concerns me the most, a great step was taken with immunotherapy and it has been seen that in 15 percent of cases the disease is controlled. One of our goals is to develop new therapies in combination with current ones to convert that 15% into 50%, even 100%. Progress has been made, and a lot, in specific tumor types, but there are other types of cancer that still need a better understanding. You have to go type by type, but as a researcher I am happy with the progress that has been made in recent years.
So we can say that the battle is being won?
I am optimistic in that sense. When you are in an oligometastatic process, that is, with point metastases, the cancer is controllable, but when the metastasis is massive, it is very difficult to contain. The mechanisms of metastasis must be understood before they occur because from then on the chances of success are less. I am optimistic because a lot has been achieved and we are achieving more and more. The more investment there is for the analysis of these mechanisms, the better we will know which molecules we can attack and there will be a greater blockade at the clinical level of this process, which is the most lethal of cancer.
You talk about investment, without financing you can’t make progress?
It has been seen with covid-19, the issue is that in cancer we are talking about 200 or 300 diseases and we have to go step by step, we have some of them under control and others we will control.
You have also made contributions at the clinical level with the development of a type of liquid biopsy for certain types of cancers. What is it?
It consists of using a biological fluid to analyze a series of markers with which to predict the risk of metastasis. When a melanoma is detected, the first thing that is done is to see the lymph nodes, if there are metastases in the nodes that surround the primary tumor, your diagnosis is worse than if you do not have it, but right now there is no molecular test that allows knowing the risk of relapse. What we have done is use the fluid that is collected with the drainage to predict the risk of relapse in patients by analyzing the tumor mutations that may be present in that fluid, there we can have a test to see the risk. The idea is that if we can do a test at the operation that identifies patients at risk, they can be more closely monitored and even treated after the operation to prevent a relapse. Now we are doing a larger clinical study with the Spanish melanoma group and we want to start another study with breast cancer. In addition to using the biological fluids from the drainage, plasma can also be used at a time prior to the operation. We are anticipating the risk of metastatic progression by offering the doctor a molecular criterion, not just a clinical one, a tool that helps predict the risk so that the oncologist can decide how to act.
Do you have any collaboration with the Salamanca Cancer Center?
I have known Xosé Bustelo for a long time, he is one of my references. When he was at ASEICA as president I was a member of the board of directors, so he is a friend and we interact a lot, he always advises me because he is a very experienced researcher, he is my link with Salamanca.
Do you dare to make an assessment of the Law of Science?
Anything that involves hiring improvements is research is an improvement. I take the people in my laboratory back to when I was a pre-doctoral fellow, then there was no contribution to Social Security, so I have a gap there, and that I was a FPU fellow, but when I finished my doctorate I had nothing, not even right to unemployment, so it has been improved and needs to be improved more. It is a step towards a future in which we hope this profession is comparable to others and we do not have to fight for stabilization every four years.
You have worked in the United States, would you say that your system is better?
When I was a researcher in the United States, I was the one who got my own salary, I depended on my projects, if I failed, I was left with nothing. It is an elitist country because if you fall out of the system you do not have access to health services, so at the science level there is more money to pay, but if you do not pay, you fall out of the system. I was very happy in America because there are many research resources and if you pay, they reward you according to your merits. In the case of Spain, investment must be improved, the country’s objective must be definitive funding in science so that in ten years we will see the results.
