CIC bioGUNE receives funding from CaixaResearch to advance an innovative therapy against malaria
The ‘la Caixa’ Foundation has selected 29 new biomedical research projects of excellence with a high social impact as part of the CaixaResearch Call for Research in Health 2024, endowed with 25.7 million euros, so that they can be carried out in research centres, hospitals and universities in Spain and Portugal.
The ‘la Caixa’ Foundation has announced the 29 projects selected in its CaixaResearch Call for Health Research 2024, a programme which, with a 25.7 million euro endowment, promotes biomedical research of excellence aimed at resolving health challenges with a high social impact. Among those selected is a project led by Ruth Pérez, from the Margarita Salas Biological Research Centre (CIB-CSIC), in collaboration with Gonzalo Jiménez-Osés, Ikerbasque Senior Researcher at the Computational Chemistry Laboratory at CIC bioGUNE – a member of BRTA –, and Jude Marek Przyborski, from Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (Germany). This international collaboration will receive funding of ¤999,400 to develop a new therapeutic strategy against malaria, one of the world’s most devastating and persistent infectious diseases.
Malaria, caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite and transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes, continues to affect millions of people in tropical and subtropical areas, causing more than 400,000 deaths annually, especially among pregnant women and children under the age of five. Although great efforts have been made to control the disease, the parasite has developed resistance to current treatments, making it difficult to create effective and affordable solutions. In this context, the project represents a novel approach that seeks to exploit the biology of the parasite to combat it effectively.
The research will focus on disrupting the parasite’s redox balance, a vital process that allows it to adapt and survive under stressful conditions within the human body. The proteins responsible for this balance are critical for its survival and differ significantly from those of the human host, offering a unique opportunity to develop targeted and safe treatments. The project has the potential to identify new molecules that selectively block these proteins, causing the death of the parasite and preventing the resistance that has limited the effectiveness of current therapies.
The CaixaResearch Call for Health Research, launched in 2018, has established itself as the most important philanthropic initiative in biomedical research in Spain and Portugal. Through a rigorous selection process carried out by international experts, the programme has supported a total of 200 projects with 145.7 million euros since its inception, of which 137 have been led by Spanish teams and 63 by Portuguese groups. In its seventh edition, the call has received 580 proposals in five priority areas: infectious diseases (7 projects selected), oncology (6), cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (5), neurosciences (5) and enabling technologies (6).
The CaixaResearch grants provide up to 500,000 euros for individual research projects, while those carried out in consortia can reach one million euros, with an execution period of up to three years. This support represents a crucial boost for the development of innovative scientific solutions that effectively address complex global health problems and generate a positive impact on society.
