The “La Caixa” Foundation selected 29 new biomedical research projects of excellence with great social impact within the call CaixaResearch for health research 2024endowed with 25.7 million euros, so that they can be carried out in research centers, hospitals and universities in Spain and Portugal.
The call, to which 580 fundamental, clinical and translational research proposals were submitted in this seventh edition, aims in particular to respond to health challenges in different areas: infectious diseases (with 7 projects selected), oncology (6), cardiovascular diseases and metabolic. (5) and neuroscience (5). Additionally, 6 other selected initiatives will develop enabling technologies in one of these areas.
Among this year’s selections are, for example, projects aimed at exploring new strategies to combat the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis or to combat heart disease; to improve understanding of liver disease associated with obesity; develop a synthetic retina to recover vision in cases of blindness due to retinitis pigmentosa; understand how the parasite that causes the disease the dream invades the tissues; generate human organs in animal hosts from stem cells; or even develop a replica of the ecosystem of a colon tumor on a chip to study the effectiveness of immunotherapies.
The aid represents financial support of up to 500,000 euros for projects carried out by a single research organization and up to one million euros for projects carried out by consortia bringing together between 2 and 5 research organizations. All will have up to 3 years to complete their investigations.
This year, the 29 selected projects are carried out by scientists from 11 Spanish and 6 Portuguese centers. The consortium’s projects benefit from the collaboration of research groups from the Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, Italy, Israel and Australia.
CaixaForum Madrid today hosted the aid distribution ceremony, which was attended by representatives of the “la Caixa” Foundation, such as the Deputy Director General, Juan Ramón Fuertes; the president of the Scientific Committee, Javier Solana; the director of the Area of Relations with Research and Health Institutions, Ignasi López; the administrator of the Foundation and honorary president of Banco Português de Investimento (BPI), Artur Santos Silva; and BPI Social Responsibility Committee member José Pena do Amaral. Also present were the president of the Luzón Foundation, María José Arregui, and the president of the Board of Directors of the Fundação para a Ciência ea Tecnologia (FCT), Madalena Alves, in addition to the researchers in charge of the projects.
According to the deputy general director of the “la Caixa” Foundation, Juan Ramón Fuertes, “this ceremony wants to be more than a simple recognition of the winning projects. We hope this will be an opportunity for researchers to connect with each other and foster synergies and scientific collaborations with a goal that unites us all: building the future of health together.
A competitive and collaborative call
The call is launched in collaboration with the FCT, a public body linked to the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation of Portugal, which provides 2.9 million euros to subsidize 3 of the 9 selected Portuguese projects in this edition. Furthermore, It is also supported by the Luzón Foundationwhich subsidizes, with the “la Caixa” Foundation, a project on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
CaixaResearch for Health Research is a call for competition that brings together very prestigious international experts in their fields of study for the selection of projects of greatest scientific excellence and social impact. Since the start of the program in 2018, the total number of The call was for 145.7 million euros for 200 projects, including 137 carried out by Spanish teams and 63by research groups from Portugal. This is currently the most important philanthropic appeal for biomedicine and health research in Spain and Portugal.
Researchers who wish to apply for support for the 2025 call can submit their projects until November 20 of this year. As a novelty, in the next edition, initiatives focused on rare pediatric diseases and type 1 diabetes will have the opportunity to receive specific funding through collaborations with the Sant Joan de Déu Research Foundation and with the Breakthrough Foundation T1D, respectively.
