Molecular Pathology of Cancer

The Cancer Molecular Pathology Research Unit is composed of researchers from Navarrabiomed and clinical researchers from the Pathology Department, Surgery and other services at the University Hospital of Navarra. Its fundamental objective is the detection of new genetic and epigenetic biomarkers related to prognosis and response to oncological treatment in patients with different types of cancer, mainly breast cancer, colorectal cancer, gynecological cancers, and brain tumors among others. For this, we use massively parallel sequencing (NGS) on tissue and liquid biopsy, as well as single-gene molecular techniques such as pyrosequencing, real-time PCR, etc.

The unit collaborates with other research groups at Navarrabiomed and at other institutions (IUOPA, Oviedo; PEBC-IDIBELL, Barcelona).

Research lines:

1. Analysis of aberrant methylation (hypo- and hypermethylation) and presence of alterations (mutations, indels, copy number variations, fusions) in genes involved in the progression of solid tumors.
2. Analysis of the prognostic and predictive value of these biomarkers for response to oncological treatment.
3. Analysis of protein expression profiles in relation to tumor characteristics.
4. In vitro functional assays.