Cristina Canal receives funding for bringing to market an innovative treatment for bone cancer

The European Research Council has awarded Dr. Cristina Canal a Proof of Concept grant to assess the feasibility of bringing to market a novel therapy to treat osteosarcoma that promotes bone regeneration with less side effects than current treatments.

Dr. Cristina Canal, head of the PlasmaMed Lab and member of the Biomaterials, Biomechanics and Tissue Engineering Research Group (BBT), has been awarded one of the few Proof of Concept (PoC) grants, awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) to support to facilitate exploring the innovation and commercial potential of ERC funded research.

The TRANSFORMER project (Transforming bone cancer therapy with composite biomaterials encapsulating plasma-generated RONS) will develop a product that combines biomaterials for bone regeneration with an innovative treatment based on plasma gas-treated hydrogels, which induce cancer cell death.

Osteosarcoma is a rare disease—it accounts for less than 0.2% of all cancers diagnosed—that mainly affects children and young adolescents. Improving the survival of patients with osteosarcoma is one of the challenges faced by the medical and scientific community, as the survival rate of patients with metastatic tumours is 30%. Standard therapy for treating osteosarcoma consists of removing the entire tumour with negative margins, that is resecting bone areas larger than the tumour itself, to make sure that no cancer cells remain at the edge of the removed tissue.

The development of this new therapy for bone cancer, avoiding the side effects of conventional treatments such as chemotherapy, and that aids bone regeneration when the tumour has been surgically resected, is a continuation of the research carried out by Dr. Canal in her ERC Starting Grant APACHE (Atmospheric Pressure plasma meets biomaterials for bone Cancer Healing), and takles the challenges imposed by this rare disease.

In the words of researcher Cristina Canal, "We want our technology to get to market so that one day this therapy can benefit patients". She adds that the grant will support "developing this novel technology by preparing it for clinical development and also exploring product viability and designing a business plan to attract investors".