Activity Report 2017
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Activity Report Research is in our DNA Since 1929 Activity Áreas de investigación Report Área de Trasplante de Órganos y Tejidos y Nuevas Terapias Edita: IDIVAL Legal Deposit: SA 525-2015 Instituto de Investigación Marqués de Valdecilla Avda. Cardenal Herrera Oria s/n 39011 Santander – España 05 Contents 7 Foreword 15 Valdecilla 17 IDIVAL 19 Organisational Structure 27 Support for Researchers 43 Training 57 A few milestones in 2017 63 R&D+i at IDIVAL 97 Research Areas: 99 Organ and Tissue Transplant and New Therapies Area 131 Neuroscience Area 151 Cancer Area 191 Cross-Disciplinary Area 209 Infectious Diseases and Immune System Area 239 Metabolism, Diseases of Ageing and Lifestyle Habits Area 249 Associated Groups Activity Áreas de investigación Report Área de Trasplante de Órganos y Tejidos y Nuevas Terapias 07 Foreword 09 globalised world, Cantabria needs an international presence which allows us to maintain and improve our current level of excellence in healthcare. Similarly, we must be able to facilitate and recognise the extra efforts of the professionals in our healthcare system who are involved in research, and this recognition must be enough of an incentive to attract more highly qualified healthcare professionals. These are some of the keys to vitalising our healthcare services through research and innovation. As I mention above, improving our treatment of patients’ problems is the core goal of healthcare research and innovation. One of the keys for dealing with the major problems facing our healthcare system is the multidisciplinary approach. In Cantabria we have experts in various disciplines who regularly work with us: engineers, physicists, economists, lawyers, and management specialists. They can all give us a competitive advantage in the development of our research and innovation projects. Here, Primary Care is an indisputable asset from the point of view of the quality of care, and it can also contribute great value in the sphere of research and innovation, as it approaches Improving the approach to health problems and most people’s healthcare problems as part of their their prevention are core goals for translational and everyday lives. innovation research in the healthcare field. Both areas are part of the identity of healthcare research This is a long-term investment which is sure to institutions like IDIVAL, which focus on these activities determine, at least partly, the sustainability of our in Spain’s leading hospitals. Treating and preventing healthcare system, and which we cannot do without. disease is undoubtedly one of the greatest tasks facing While we are aware of the limitations imposed by the our society, and finding a sustainable approach is an size of a region like ours, the Cantabrian Health Service ongoing challenge. has other very considerable development options. The primary purpose of healthcare systems is to care Thanks to its healthcare professionals, Cantabria has for patients; however, the best international healthcare been able to consolidate IDIVAL as the benchmark centres also consider training new professionals and healthcare research institute in our region. The biomedical research to be an essential part of their challenges and possibilities it presents are enormous, activity. Balancing these three elements is not a simple matched by the ambition and determination of all our task, and requires simultaneously accommodating the professionals, who we must recognise and incentivise different views of the various institutions which must so their professionalism and hard work can give us the work closely together to do so: hospitals, universities, value of healthcare knowledge and innovation. and research centres. In our Autonomous Region teaching and research are especially important in the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, one of Cantabria’s major generators of scientific knowledge, as attested by the indicators for recent years, including María Luisa Real González 2017, shown in this report. This stems from the Minister of Health of the Government of Cantabria. Hospital’s well-known past trajectory, which must President of the Board of IDIVAL continue to evolve to meet the demands of modern society. IDIVAL must be an instrument to facilitate the approach to major healthcare-related challenges by fostering talent, innovation and internationalisation. IDIVAL contributes special value to the responsibility of training the coming generations of professionals so they can acquire the tools they need for a fully developed future career, by facilitating mobility, attracting and retaining new researchers, and training clinical personnel in aspects relating to research and innovation, in connection with leading international centres. In this 11 of this, because not many institutes enjoy support like the grants it provides for IDIVAL. In a small region, the continued excellence of IDIVAL would be impossible without this economic support. The efforts of the current Regional Ministry to invest in high-technology at the HUMV will also enable IDIVAL to remain scientifically competitive. In 2017 it I would like to begin by congratulating the Director surpassed 2,000 impact factor points and a cumulative of IDIVAL, Galo Peralta, who was recently appointed total of 120,000 citations in international literature. As Head of the ITEMAS (healthcare technology well as the number of publications (443 in 2017), their innovation) platform of the Carlos III Health Institute. quality is also notable: over half are in the first quartile, As well as a national acknowledgement of his and the average impact factor (4.62) is excellent. management of IDIVAL, this is also a recognition of Valdecilla’s commitment to innovation, which can Despite these figures, we still have a long way to go. bring great opportunities to our institution and to As the Minister said in her foreword, according to Cantabria, a small region which can only compete in IDIVAL’s mission its research must focus on treating quality of research, not in quantity. and preventing health problems. Our research will only have meaning if it has the potential to benefit Readers examining the data in this Report will see that the public. To achieve this, more than ever, we must over 2017 IDIVAL has exceeded its goals. Everybody distance ourselves from conventional research which in the organisation, starting with its new scientific focuses more on methodology than on the problem, director, Professor Benedicto Crespo, should be and which does not offer any improvement in the well- congratulated for achieving their objectives. IDIVAL being of our patients. It is true that it is not easy to has grown in groups over 2017, and has grown by leave our comfort zone of project-based financing and considering unfairly neglected areas of healthcare change to results-based financing, and this will require (nursing, primary care) and non-healthcare areas changes in the administration’s recruitment policy (photonics engineering, healthcare law), confirming to enable us to attract real talent to our institutions, its inclusive nature. As just one example of the but this is the only way we can repay society for its success of this strategy, I would like to highlight its contributions. first patent (because it will not be the last) in prostate brachytherapy, one of the areas where HUMV is taking the lead thanks to its collaboration with the UC Photonics group. Julio Pascual Let’s talk about financing. Exactly two thirds of Managing Director of the Marqués de Valdecilla University IDIVAL’s budget comes from its own resources (private Hospital, member of the Board of Governors, and Chairman of or competitive). Here the figures speak for themselves: the Executive Committee of the IDIVAL Board of Governors more than 90 research projects and 211 clinical trials over 2017 (both figures are more than twice those for 2015). Undoubtedly, the recent regularisation to ensure transparency in clinical trial management has attracted more trials, and those trials are more complex and at earlier stages, which was a major goal for our hospital. The Government of Cantabria deserves thanks for all 13 Working to secure resources from European funds, to recruit and retain leading researchers with a high level of scientific activity, to foster research careers among young healthcare professionals, and to improve our national and international visibility should be the watchword for IDIVAL in the next few years. 2017 was a year of consolidation in the research activity and promotion of the Valdecilla biomedical I know that with the commitment and efforts of all the environment. And this strengthening of foundations actors involved, we can continue to be proud of our and recognition as the benchmark biomedical achievements, and we can be sure that the best is still research body of Cantabria may be its most important to come in our mission to benefit society. achievement of the year. The figures for IDIVAL’s activity over the year (scientific output, attracting resources, achievements in innovation and level of internationalisation) continue Benedicto Crespo-Facorro to reflect the Institute’s leadership and attest to its Scientific Director of IDIVAL satisfactory progress. Meanwhile, IDIVAL’s milestones and new commitments include the addition of new research groups in areas like primary care, nursing, biomedical law, and photonics engineering, and a strong commitment to foster research and innovation among young professionals through PostMIR Valdecilla contracts, the mentoring programme,