Pablo Pelegrin is collaborating on a treatment that ‘blocks’ a rare inflammation that occurs in leukemia patients – Press Center

At the intersection of painstaking basic research and urgent clinical reality, researcher Pablo Pelegrin Vivancos from the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology “B” and Immunology of the University of Murcia and the laboratory of Francisca Ferrer Marin from the Hematology Department of Morales – Hospital Meseguer, both affiliated with the Murcia Institute of Biosanitary Research Pascual Parrilla (IMIB) ), collaborated on a study that delayed bone marrow transplantation for a patient with a certain type of leukemia who had multiple inflammatory conditions. conditions caused by gene mutation.

“We needed a treatment that would ‘stop’ the disease and improve the condition of a patient who was already terminally ill and in need of palliative care due to heart and pulmonary failure,” says Dr. Ferrer. Experimental studies conducted in Dr. Pelegrin’s laboratory have shown that due to leukemia, the inflammatory pathway, which is normally activated only by certain stimuli, is highly activated. This pathway, called interleukin-1, is involved in the response to infections but is also induced in chronic inflammatory, metabolic and degenerative diseases in response to molecular danger signals. This discovery allowed a specific treatment that “blocked” inflammation to keep the patient alive during months of paralysis in hospitals and serve as a bridge until a bone marrow transplant could be performed.

From test tubes to 20 patients

“Although the patient had a compatible donor, he probably would not have made it to the operating room as we were in the second wave of Covid,” the researchers said. The only hope for a cure for this cancer patient was found in basic test tube science, because six years before he was diagnosed, he was already experiencing recurring episodes of inflammation in the lungs, skin, testicles, lymph nodes, and surrounding lining. heart. He even had his spleen removed. “This experience prompted us to collect national cases of patients with the same leukemia and the same type of mutation,” Pelegrin continues. The participation of Dr. Ferrer and her team, as well as the collaboration of the molecular biology group of the Spanish Society of Hematology, played a key role in collecting a number of cases of patients with the same leukemia and the same type of mutation and searching for the “inflammatory signature” specific.

Thanks to the collaboration of the Leukemia Research Institute Josep Carreras, the Catalan Institute of Oncology, the University of Salamanca, as well as the help of hospitals distributed throughout the country, clinical data from 20 patients and samples from those who were alive were collected. and is not treated. Experimental studies in these patients confirmed the data obtained in the Murcian patient, who two and a half years after transplantation is still alive and free of disease.