From left to right: Marselina Arshakyan, Elba Marín (front), Paula Duch, Cristina Teixidó, Noemí Reguart, Rafael Ikemori, Jordi Alcaraz, Marta Gabasa and Natalia Díaz.
From left to right: Marselina Arshakyan, Elba Marín (front), Paula Duch, Cristina Teixidó, Noemí Reguart, Rafael Ikemori, Jordi Alcaraz, Marta Gabasa and Natalia Díaz. "In recent decades, cancer research has been aimed at having more specific treatments for each type of tumour and patient, improving the patients' prognosis. In this line, this study is relevant because it identifies a therapeutic target for those patients with adenocarcinoma subtype non-small cell lung cancer, the most common lung cancer", notes Paula Duch, UB researcher and first author of the article. The study includes the participation of researchers of the Hospital Clínic, the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), the Respiratory Diseases Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERES), the Health Research Institute of the Hospital Clínico San Carlos (IdISSC) and the Mayo Clinic (United States). The study received funding from the State Research Agency and Cellex Private Foundation. TIMP-1 is a protein unusually secreted by fibroblasts, a type of non-malignant cell that accompanies cancer cells and is the main component of what is called the tumour microenvironment. To understand the role of TIMP-1 in this process, the researchers used a unique collection of fibroblasts derived from lung cancer patients at the Hospital Clínic in Spain.
