The Cima has launched the project DESCARTHeS, a research to advance the treatment of solid and hematological tumors. It is a multicenter initiative in which, in addition to the Cima, which coordinates the project, the Clínica Universidad de NavarraThe Navarra Hospital Complex, the Miguel Servet Foundation through Navarrabiomed and the biotechnological business Recombina Biotech.

The project DESCARTHeS (development Strategic CAR-T therapies for the treatment of Hematological and Solid Tumors) has as goal to develop a technological platform that allows the introduction in the Navarra Health System of this advanced therapy based on CAR-T cells (genetically modified immune T cells with a chimeric antigen receptor, CAR, for its acronym in English).

The Government of Navarra, in its firm commitment to the advancement of personalized medicine in the Comunidad Foral (Strategy of specialization Inteligente de Navarra, S3), selected the project DESCARTHeS within its 2019 call for strategic projects of research and development.

Launch of project

Once the public-public consortium was formed, and thanks to the support of the Government, the launching meeting took place. About twenty researchers representing all the participating institutions attended quotation . In this first meeting, held at Cima, the main aspects of project, the structure of the work packages and the schedule of activities to be carried out in the coming months were presented. Specifically, in this first scientific meeting specific therapeutic targets have been chosen to initiate the research treatment of some tumors with CAR-T cells, novel strategies for design and CARs implementation techniques have been proposed, and the production strategies of this therapy have been presented, among other aspects.

For the coming months the consortium has the goal to identify potential new targets, advance in the development of new CARs and assess the usefulness of the selected techniques to characterize the functionality of CAR-Ts.