Joaquín Arribas López

Joaquín Arribas López

Parc de Salut Mar & Vall d'Hebron Institut d'Oncologia

Life & Medical Sciences

Dr. Arribas completed his B.Sc. studies in Biochemistry at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 1987, where he also got his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology in 1992, working on proteasome regulation. Sponsored by a fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, he joined the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, USA (1992-96), working on the proteolytic processing of transmembrane growth factors. After his post-doc, he joined the oncology department at Hospital Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona in 1997 as a Staff Scientist and has since led the Growth Factors research group. In 2010, he was appointed VHIO's director of the Preclinical Research Program and CIBERONC's Scientific director in 2017. He resigned from both positions to become director of the Hospital del Mar Institute for Medical Investigations (IMIM) and lead the Growth Factors group at VHIO, and the Immune Redirection group at IMIM.

Research interests

As the leader of a multicenter research team, Dr. Arribas’ research interests center on HER2+ cancers and senescence’s role in cancer onset and metastasis, with a primary focus on breast cancer.

More specifically, the research activities conducted by his team are:

  • Develop novel therapeutic strategies to treat breast and pancreatic cancer.
  • Evaluate anticancer treatments (including immune redirection) in patient-derived cancer xenografts and identify resistance mechanisms to current therapies.
  • Develop and characterize CAR-T cell-based therapies against tumor-specific antigens in preclinical models.
  • Characterize cellular senescence’s role in breast cancer progression and treatment.

Selected publications

– Serra-Camprubí Q, Verdaguer H, Oliveros W, et al. 2023, ‘Human Metastatic Cholangiocarcinoma Patient-Derived Xenografts and Tumoroids for Preclinical Drug Evaluation‘, Clinical Cancer Research, 29, 2, 432 – 445.

– Duro-Sánchez S, Alonso MR & Arribas J 2023, ‘Immunotherapies against HER2-Positive Breast Cancer‘, Cancers, 15, 4, 1069.

– Quintana Á, Arenas EJ, Bernadó C, Navarro JF, González J, Esteve-Codina A, Moliné T, Marti M, Curigliano G, Schmid P, Peg V, Arribas J & Cortés J 2023, ‘Evaluation of triple negative breast cancer with heterogeneous immune infiltration‘, Frontiers In Immunology, 14, 1149747.

– Fiascarelli A, Merlino G, Capano S, Talucci S, Bisignano D, Bressan A, Bellarosa D, Carrisi C, Paoli A, Bigioni M, Tunici P, Irrissuto C, Salerno M, Arribas J, de Stanchina E, Scaltriti M & Binaschi M 2023, ‘Antitumor activity of the PI3K δ-sparing inhibitor MEN1611 in PIK3CA mutated, trastuzumab-resistant HER2+breast cancer‘, Breast cancer research and treatment, 199 – 1 – 13 – 23.
– Saura C, Ortiz C, Matito J, et al. 2023, ‘Early-Stage Breast Cancer Detection in Breast Milk‘, Cancer Discovery, 13 (10): 2180–2191.
– Pérez Del Río E, Román Alonso M, Rius I, Santos F, Castellote-Borrell M, Veciana J, Ratera I, Arribas J & Guasch J 2023, ‘Three-dimensional cell culture of chimeric antigen receptor T cells originated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells towards cellular therapies‘, Cytotherapy, 25, 12, 1293-1299.
– del Río EP, Alonso MR, Rius I, Santos F, Castellote-Borrell M, Veciana J, Ratera I, Arribas J & Guasch J 2023 ‘Three-dimensional cell culture of chimeric antigen receptor T cells originated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells towards cellular therapies‘, Cytotherapy, 25 – 12 – 1293 – 1299