The Fero Foundation donates 400,000 euros to the fight against cancer.

BarcelonaBarcelona experienced a night of awareness and advocacy for science this Monday. The Fero Foundation held its traditional charity dinner at the Royal Shipyards in support of cancer research and wanted to involve the entire city in its fight against cancer. Thus, the Torre Glòries Viewpoint, for the second consecutive year, and La Pedrera, for the first time, were illuminated in green to highlight the foundation's work, while five research grants worth a total of €400,000 were awarded at the Royal Shipyards. The foundation's support will allow the recipients to fund their projects and, ultimately, apply their research to benefit patients.

Hosted by Helena Garcia Melero, who has collaborated with the foundation for years, this evening celebrating cancer research was attended by more than 830 people, including journalist Glòria Serra and presenters Juanra Bonet and Jorge Fernández. Everyone attended the event. photocall prior to the charity dinner and participated in one of the evening's highlights: the synchronized lighting of the Glow Experience bracelets worn by attendees, a way of exemplifying collective unity in the pursuit of cancer care. During the dinner, there were also words of remembrance for Mango founder Isak Andic, who passed away last December and was closely linked to the Fero scholarships.

The scholarship recipients

One of the new features of this year's edition is the awarding for the first time of the Fero-Aladina scholarship for pediatric cancer from the Aladina Foundation and the Fero-Carmen Mateu scholarship for medical researchers, sponsored by the Peralada Group. These two scholarships are in addition to three others: the Fero scholarship for young researchers, which is now in its twenty-ninth year; the Fero-Mango scholarship for breast cancer, which has now been awarded seven times; and the Fero-GHD scholarship for breast cancer, which has also reached its seventh edition. Each of the five scholarships is endowed with a prize of 80,000 euros.

Dr. Renée Beekman, from the Center for Genomic Regulation, has received the 29th Young Investigator Grant for research that aims to discover the first cell that gives rise to a rare but aggressive type of blood cancer. The recipient of the Fero-Mango grant is Dr. Mafalda Oliveira, from the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), who is studying how T lymphocytes react to treatment for triple-negative breast cancer. Also in the field of breast cancer, Dr. Ángel R. Nebreda, from the Barcelona Research Institute, has received a grant to investigate why some triple-negative breast cancer tumor cells survive chemotherapy and are able to spread and cause metastasis. The Fero-Aladina grant went to Dr. Pablo Menéndez, from the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute, who is working on the development of CAR T therapies—which involve the use of the patient's own T cells—targeting a receptor present in sarcomas. Finally, the Fero-Carmen Mateu grant went to Dr. Raquel Pérez, also from VHIO, who is working on the application of artificial intelligence to clinical data and routine medical images to detect hidden signals that facilitate greater access to precision therapies and more effective management of prostate cancer.

Since its inception, the Fero Foundation, created in 2001 by Dr. Josep Baselga, has contributed more than €30 million, distributed among a hundred cancer research projects that ultimately have an impact on patients. Translational research is the one closest to the patient so that research reaches the patient sooner. But we know it's also important to ask why, which later helps us find a new drug or a new diagnostic tool, or how to integrate different elements to be more efficient in treating patients.

Regarding the two new grants added this year, he explains that they respond, firstly, to the need to provide resources for pediatric research and, secondly, to support such an important figure as the medical researcher. "We decided to create a grant for medical scientists, who are the ones who conduct research. These are figures like Dr. Baselga, Dr. Aleix Prats, and Dr. Tabernero," he adds. Garriga emphasizes that the foundation will continue working tirelessly with the conviction that "a future without cancer is possible." To make this a reality, Monday's dinner not only served to announce this year's awardees but also aimed to raise funds for research. During the event, the foundation's ongoing collaborations with various research centers such as the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) in Barcelona and the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona were also announced.