In 365 days it is hardly possible to measure issues of far-reaching social projection, such as the biomedical research . In 2007, the Year of Science, researchers at CIMA of the University of Navarra advanced their scientific work in the 4 areas: Gene Therapy and Hepatology (hepatitis B and C, cirrhosis and liver cancer), Cardiovascular Sciences (hypertension, atherosclerosis, thrombosis), Neurosciences (Alzheimer and Parkinson) and Oncology (lung, breast, colon and prostate cancers, lymphomas and leukemias).

Undoubtedly, the most relevant number was 421, the issue total number of professionals from 25 countries working at CIMA: biologists, biochemists, pharmacists, physicians, engineers and staff administration and services. Each from his or her position contributed to development of the 22 projects of research and development.

As a result of its work, the number of patents rose to 35, some of which reached pioneering milestones in the progress of this young scientific and technological center in Navarra. After passing in vitro tests and animal experimentation, the first patent of CIMA received the approval of the Ministry of Health for clinical trials (tests on humans). It is P144, a molecule developed to cure or alleviate patients with scleroderma, a skin disease that is still incurable. 

Patent to test in European hospitals

The hypotheses of this line of research point to potential applications in cardiac fibrosis, skin cancer and breast prostheses. With successive official acknowledgements, P144 passed tests on 18 healthy volunteers in 2007. Subsequently, P144 was shown to be effective in 36 scleroderma patients. At the end of the year, clinical trials began with a hundred patients from hospitals in Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland and Spain. Although science is not 100% predictable, if the remaining trials are equally effective, this drug could reach patients waiting for an effective treatment for their disease next year.
In the institutional section , the CIMA signed agreements with the University of California, the Dutch biotech company Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT) and ISDIN laboratories, among others.

The international partnership , decisive in the biomedical research , brought to Pamplona scientists from centers such as the high school Pasteur (France) or the Max Planck (Germany), as well as numerous Spanish specialists.
accredited specialization Special mention should be made of the meeting organized with 8 world gurus in Parkinson's disease, from the USA, Australia, UK and France. They concluded that the core topic to find more promising therapies may lie in combining 2 types of advances: understanding how genetic disorders lead to the loss of neurons in the substantia nigra and measuring the progression of the neurodegenerative process with neuroimaging techniques. Logically, among those most interested in this subject of scientific approaches are the 100,000 Parkinson's patients in Spain.

Also in 2007, research was launched to verify whether cardiotrophin 1, a molecule that is measurable in blood, could be used as a diagnostic marker for hypertensive heart disease. After studying the relationship of the molecule with this disease, the experts at CIMA consider that cardiotrophin 1 is a useful means of preventing or controlling the harmful effects on the heart of patients with this pathology, who in Spain number more than 4 million and account for half of the 8 million hypertensive patients.

The area of Oncology was in the news for several research projects. The one with the greatest international impact was the one developed to combat a blood cancer, follicular lymphoma, subject . After the work was published in the scientific journal The Journal of National Cancer Institute in the USA, the novelty of the treatment appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

Science and health for citizenship

Cooperation with professionals and public centers was strengthened in the Autonomous Community of Navarra. One example is the Neurological Tissue Bank of Navarra, promoted by the Navarra Health Service, the University Clinic and CIMA. This biomedical bank is a center for the conservation of neurological tissue and other related tissues, based on a program of donors with or without neurological or psychiatric disease. The goal is to offer this tissue to researchers who direct their efforts to knowledge and the eradication of nervous tissue diseases.
Finally, a joint initiative of CIMA and Diario de Navarra of clear social service are the talks-colloquium of "classroom de Salud" to bring the citizenship closer to the biomedical research . The informative sessions, at position by researchers from CIMA and doctors from the University Clinic, focused on obesity, anorexia, lung cancer, cervical cancer and drug addiction in young people. Because health matters, we do research to cure.