Research groups

Basic research at VHIO consists of the following groups:

Animal Models Laboratory
The Animal Models Laboratory is engaged in the study of proteins which may play an important role in the development and progress of human melanoma in order to identify new molecules and molecular mechanisms involved in this disease.
Group Leader: Juan Ángel Recio

Gene Expression and Cancer Laboratory
This group's research focuses on the study of glioma, the most common and aggressive brain tumor, and works with cell cultures and with mouse models of glioma.
Group Leader: Joan Seoane

Growth Factors Laboratory
The Growth Factors Laboratory exploreses the role of certain signal transduction pathways in the development of cancer.
Group Leader: Joaquín Arribas López

Proteomics Laboratory
The Proteomics Laboratory provides services to research groups on latest-generation proteomics methodologies.
Group Leader: Francesc Canals

Targeted Cancer Proteomics
The aim of this group is to discover new tumor-specific biomarkers and therapeutic targets using proteomic methodologies to improve cancer diagnostics and therapeutic treatment.
Group Leader: Josep Villanueva

Stem Cells and Cancer Laboratory
This group examines  the molecular mechanisms that control the onset and progress of epithelial and colorectal tumors.
Group Leader: Héctor G. Palmer

• Animal Models Laboratory
  Juan Angel Recio graduated in biology, specializing in biochemistry, from  the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and holds a master’s degree in Biotechnology. 
  In 1997 he moved to Dr. Notarios’s laboratory at the Lombardi Cancer Center, Georgertown University (Washington, DC), where he cloned the human and mouse genes of the proto-cph (pcph) oncogene, elucidated the ectonucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolase activity of the protein and its role in carcinogenesis.In 1999 he joined Dr. Merlino’s lab at the National Cancer Institute (NCI, NIH, Bethesda, MD), where he contributed to the discovery of molecular mechanisms underlying signalling of the receptor tyrosine kinase c-MET and how those pathways subverted in malignant melanoma and rabdomyosarcoma.
  His achivements in the field of melanoma include the creation of a malignant melanoma mouse model which, is broadly used as a model for UV irradiation within the scientific community. The National Cancer Institute has recognized this line of work with several awards.
  He joined to the Medical Oncology Program in December 2004  as Group Leader (Ramon y Cajal Investigator) of the Animal Models and Cancer laboratory. The Group has focused on the discovery of new molecular mechanisms involved in melanoma development and progression and the direct application of this knowledge to developing new therapeutical approaches.
• Gene Expression and Cancer Laboratory
  

  Joan Seoane obtained his Ph. D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1998 from the University of Barcelona.
  He joined the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), New York, as a post-doctoral fellow in 1998. From 1998 to 2001, he worked as a research fellow and then from 2001 to 2003 as a research associate in the laboratory of Joan Massagué (MSKCC). During this time, he determined the molecular pathways involved in the anti-proliferative response to TGF-beta in epithelial cells and discovered how these pathways are disrupted in cancer. His work identified the mechanisms that allow tumor cells to withstand  the tumor suppressing effect of TGF-beta.
  His post-doctoral work has been  the subject of several publications in high impact journals (Cell, Nature, Nature Cell Biology) and he was appointed Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Research Fellow (2003) and awarded a grant by the Catalan Society of Biology (Josep Maria Sala Trepat Award, 2004)  for his post-doctoral work.In 2004, he was appointed Research Professor by ICREA (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats) and established his own Group “Gene Expression and Cancer”.
  His research objectives are the study of the molecular mechanisms involved in the genesis and progression of brain tumors. His work is considered a leading example of translational research linking basic and clinical research.
  
  In 2007, he joined the Young Investigator EMBO programme and was the recipient of an European Research Council grant.
  
  In 2008, his work was featured  in an article in Nature on biomedical research in Barcelona (“Catalonian powerhouse” Nature 454, 248-9, 2008).

• Growth Factors Laboratory
  Joaquín Arribas graduated in biochemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1987. He received a Ph. D. in biology in 1991.
  He joined the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA) as a postdoctoral fellow to work with Joan Massagué on the proteolytic processing of transmembrane growth factors. He joined the oncology department at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona as a group leader in 1997, to investigate the role of certain growth factors and their receptors in breast cancer progression and treatment, and was promoted to lead the oncology research department in 2001. He was appointed Research Professor by ICREA (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats) in 2007.
  His research has been recognized by an EMBO Young Investigator Programme (YIP) award and the Beckman Coulter award for the Best Young Spanish Investigator in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Translational Oncology and CDB Protein Systems.
  He is also member of the Spanish and American Societies of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and President of the Committee for the Evaluation of Cancer Research Projects of the Carlos III Health Institute.
  
• Proteomics Laboratory
  

  Francesc Canals graduated in organic chemistry at the Institut Químic de Sarrià, Barcelona, in 1982, where he also obtained his PhD in 1989 in the field of organic photochemistry. He also obtained a degree in biochemistry at the Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona, in 1987.

  He worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Jack Kyte, at the University of California San Diego (USA) where he performed protein chemistry studies on the signaling mechanism of the epidermal growth factor receptor, showing that the tyrosine kinase of the receptor is activated after its dimerization.In 2003 he joined the Medical Oncology Research program as head of the Proteomics Laboratory. Since then, he has set up the different separation and mass-spectrometry based proteomic technologies provided by the facility. His research focuses on the development and application of proteomic strategies to characterize the substrate repertoire - degradome - of metalloproteases of the ADAM and ADAMTS families, involved in tumor progression.

• Targeted Cancer Proteomics Laboratory
  

  Josep Villanueva obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2000 from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
  
  In 2002, he accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Paul Tempst at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA). There, he participated in a new clinical proteomics program whose objective was the identification of serum cancer biomarkers. He became the lead-scientist in the development of a unique automated platform for the measurement of peptides in serum using magnetic beads and a mass spectrometry read-out.
  Following the ‘technology phase’, he collaborated with clinicians and clinical chemists at MSKCC effectively demonstrating that a limited subset of serum peptides provides accurate class discrimination between patients with three types of solid tumors and healthy controls.  Sequence analysis revealed that these peptides were generated by ‘cancer-type’-specific exopeptidase activities.
  
  In 2006, he was promoted to senior staff scientist at MSKCC. Intent on becoming an independent investigator, he started developing a longer-term project exploring targeted approaches to tumor biomarker discovery. Since then, he has developed a new methodology for the high-throughput proteomics profiling of cell-secreted inventories (the ‘secretome’) with a clear focus on biomarkers. The first fruit of this new phase in his career was his first publication as senior author in 2009.
  
  His postdoctoral work is widely respected and recognized in the proteomics biomarker discovery field. He is the first author on all ten Clinical Proteomic publications from the Tempst laboratory. Furthermore, the platform developed by Dr. Villanueva has been licensed to a biotech company – this is currently available as a commercial solution for proteomic biomarker discovery. He also serves in the Editorial Board of the Journal of Proteomics.
  In 2009, Dr. Villanueva returned to Barcelona as an independent researcher and became the group leader of the Targeted Cancer Proteomics laboratory at VHIO. His research program is aimed at the discovery of tumor-specific biomarkers and therapeutic targets using proteomic methodologies to improve cancer diagnostics and therapeutic treatment. 

  
  jvillanueva@vhio.net

   

• Stem cells and Cancer Laboratory
  

  In 2001, Héctor G. Palmer obtained his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
  While working at the Instituto de Investigaciones Biomedicas in Madrid as a Postdoctoral Fellow, he described the role of Wnt pathway, Vitamin D Receptor (VDR) and Snail transcription factors controlling human colon cancer progression.
  In 2003, he was awarded a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship,  and in 2004 he joined the Cancer Research UK (UK) as Postdoctoral Fellow under the leadership of Prof. Fiona M. Watt, where he described VDR as a novel transcriptional effector of the Wnt pathway that controls the fate of stem cells in adult epidermis. He also discovered that the central role of the Wnt signalling in tumor initiation depends on VDR function, opening a new opportunity for the use of Vitamin D based drugs to prevent cancer development.
  In 2008 Héctor returned as an independent researcher and became group leader of the Stem Cells and Cancer Laboratory at VHIO. He has continued his work on the role of Wnt/beta-catenin pathway driving normal and cancer stem cell fate in epithelial tissues and its significance in tumor initiation, progression and self-renewal.

  hgpalmer@vhio.net