On 14 June 2023, the Spanish Metastatic Breast Cancer Association (AECMM) held the presentation of the two Meta-prizes in the 4th Edition of the M. Chiara Giorgetti Award for research into metastatic breast cancer. One of the Meta-prizes was for the CLÍNIC-IDIBAPS project presented by Dr. Aleix Prat, director of the Hospital Clínic Institute of Haematological and Oncological Diseases (ICMHO) and coordinator of the ‘Translational genomics and targeted therapies in solid tumours’ group, and his team. The winning project is the “Identification and validation of therapeutic targets to overcome resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors and endocrine therapy in hormone receptor-positive metastases”. The aim of the project is to detect patients with metastatic disease with progression after treatment with CDK4/6i, taking into account different factors: the presence or absence of brain metastases, tumour burden, treatment with CDK4/6 in the first, second or subsequent lines of treatment, etc. All this in order to define which of these factors may be useful to improve the treatment strategy after progression. The AECMM awarded this project the sum of €40,000.
The award ceremony was held at the Hospital Clínic Barcelona, and was attended by Dr. Michela Bertero, director of Strategy at IDIBAPS, Dr. Aleix Prat, who presented the project, and Sara Cervelló, member of the Board of Directors of the AECMM, who presented the award.
Dr. Bertero opened the event, “I am also an Italian in Spain, like Chiara, and I am very familiar with your disease because my mother suffered from it. On behalf of IDIBAPS, we are very grateful for the association’s work, supporting cutting-edge research, which can change clinical practice and thus have an impact on the lives of patients and their families. This is also the mission of our institution at the Campus Clínic. We look forward to continuing and exploring new projects or collaborative initiatives with the association”.
Moreover, Sara Cervelló stressed the importance of these AECMM awards, as an association committed to research, the only one of its kind in Europe for metastatic breast cancer. “The aim of these awards is to advance together, patients and researchers, towards a chronification or, why not, a cure. We have great confidence in the advances in research and new treatments, and that they will become more effective and give us greater quality of life”. Sara Cervelló also recalled “the importance of the speedy approval of these new drugs and equal access to treatments and technologies that open the door to greater survival”.
Dr. Aleix Prat expressed his “gratitude to the AECMM, which I have been involved with for years. The story of the Association is a success story, and it is going from strength to strength. It is a source of pride for the cancer community to have initiatives like this. In this project funded by this grant, we are going to carry out one of the most important biological characterizations in metastatic breast cancer resistant to hormonal treatment and CDK4/6 inhibitors. The aim is to identify new therapeutic targets that will eventually improve the quality of life and survival of patients”.
One of the main objectives of the AECMM (together with the visibility of the disease and patient support) is research into metastatic breast cancer, an objective that is materialized in the M. Chiara Giorgetti Award. The total value of the award in this 4th Edition was €210,000, distributed between the Prize (€130,000) and two Meta-prizes (€40,000 each). The money comes entirely from the contributions of its members, activities carried out by the Association and donations from different individuals and collaborating companies.
