Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. Although advances in diagnosis and treatment have improved the prognosis for many patients, preventing the cancer from spreading remains one of the major challenges in cancer research.

Among the strategies to prevent metastasis are bisphosphonates, a class of drugs which, as well as treating bone loss, can help prevent the cancer from spreading to the bones in certain groups of patients. However, their benefits are not the same for all women, so it’s crucial to identify who might be able to benefit from this treatment.

With this aim in mind, the team led by Roger Gomis at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) identified the role played by the MAF gene in the progression of breast cancer.

The ”la Caixa” Foundation awarded yesterday, October 15th, 80 grants to new biomedical and health projects led by research centres, universities and hospitals across Spain and Portugal. These scientific projects address current health challenges, ranging from the generation of scientific knowledge to the development of solutions with a social impact.

The 80 selected projects have the potential to make a positive impact on people’s health, but require sustained support to develop, demonstrate their potential and undergo testing in real-world settings. The ”la Caixa” Foundation is therefore providing them with 32.4 million euros in funding through its 2026 competitive calls for research and innovation proposals.

Can we make immune cells reach tumours more effectively?

Cardiovascular disease accounts for one in three deaths worldwide, making it the leading cause of death today. Behind this figure lies a long list of conditions whose symptoms don’t always give any warning, and risk factors that can go unnoticed until their consequences are irreversible.

That’s why cardiovascular research is advancing in three crucial and complementary directions: firstly, prevention before the first symptoms appear; secondly, more accurate diagnosis; and finally, the development of treatments capable of repairing damage to the heart and restoring its function once the disease has developed. 

Today, on World Heart Day, we highlight some of the areas our research community is working on,

In this month’s instalment, science and artistic creation embark on the same journey from shadow to light.

This month’s Snapshot emerges from deep shadow, evoking Odilon Redon’s iconic noir drawings (black-and-white works characterised by dense, diffuse, dreamlike and unsettling forms), prior to his subsequent transition towards colour and light. Similarly, the image from this scientific study first dwells in the shadow of tumour spheres to, through the impact of blue light, activate a photosensitiser drug that goes on to act on these resistant cells and unfold the true ‘scientific work’.

We’ve adopted two approaches to examine this intersection of perspectives between art and science in this innovative photopharmacological study.

Three in the morning. 27 degrees.

This was the lowest temperature recorded by Barcelona’s thermometers during the night of 28-29 June 2026. Such tropical nights have ceased to be a summer anomaly, becoming a symptom of a more far-reaching transformation: climate change is no longer just an environmental phenomenon but also a public health crisis of the first order.

The figures bear this out. In the summer of 2024 alone, over 62,700 people died from heat-related causes in Europe, according to a study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) published in Nature Medicine. To analyse this new reality, the report Extreme Heat,