The National Academy of Sciences of the United States retracts Barbacid's article on pancreatic cancer

BarcelonaAt the beginning of 2026, a very promising scientific article was published about one of the deadliest cancers, pancreatic cancer. The research, led by the director of the Experimental Oncology Group at the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Mariano Barbacid, had managed to completely eliminate pancreatic tumors in mice, an unprecedented feat that was published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. This Tuesday, however, the institution – of which Barbacid is a member – has announced that it is retracting the publication because it has detected "a relevant conflict of interest not disclosed at the time of its submission".

The academy has verified that Barbacid and two of the co-authors of the work, Vasiliki Liaki and Carmen Guerra, have financial interests in the company Vega Oncotargets, which was created with the aim of developing therapies against this type of cancer, as reported by the newspaper El País and confirmed by Efe. Therefore, it has retracted the publication and recalled that the journal's editorial policy states that members who have competing interests, financial or otherwise, that could be considered to influence their objectivity or create an "unfair" competitive advantage for any person or organization linked to the research, "must submit their work as a direct submission".

Triple therapy

The study focused on pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most frequent type of tumor. The researchers devised a strategy that attacked three key points of this cancer: the mutation that initiates the tumor (called KRAS) and the two implicated proteins that promote the proliferation, survival, and growth of this cancer (called EGFR and STAT3). After six years of work, the researchers claimed to have demonstrated the curative efficacy of this triple therapy.