Dr. Roger Gomis is an ICREA Research Professor and a member of the Cancer Science Program at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona. He received his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Barcelona in 2002, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Prof. Joan Massagué's laboratory. In 2007, he assumed his current position. Since 2018 he is an associate professor at the University of Barcelona. Dr. Roger Gomis is interested in how growth factors, signaling pathways, and gene expression programs control normal cell behavior and cancer cell metastasis. Driven by the problem of metastasis, which is the cause of 90% of cancer deaths, his laboratory is pursuing the mechanisms of metastasis. In 2012 Roger founded Inbiomotion as an ICREA and IRB Barcelona spin-off company, in 2024 product reached the market and first patient tested. In 2024 ONA therapeutics licensed and development new first in class antibody drug conjugates from the lab.
Research interests
Although metastasis is the leading cause of cancer death, we are still ill-prepared to fight it. Chemotherapy targets high-proliferating rather than the low-proliferating metastatic cells—allowing these to spread from the primary tumor to distant sites, where they resist conventional treatments, proliferate, and cause vital organ failure. We and others have helped to simplify our understanding of metastasis as an orderly sequence of basic steps, which allows us to rationalize the biological properties required for metastatic disease. We know that cancer cells must orchestrate diverse cellular functions to overcome the difficulties of transiting into the metastatic cascade; these functions are highly dependent on the interactions between the metastatic cell, the tumor, and host stroma. We now need a better understanding of steps of the kinetics and mechanisms that regulate tissue-specific metastasis progression, as a prerequisite for developing effective therapies in the future.
Selected publications
- Crespo, JR et al. 2024, 'The PP2A regulator IER5L supports prostate cancer progression', Cell death & disease, 15 - 7 - 514.
Selected research activities
- Coordinator of the module: Stem cells and Cancer; PhD program in Translational Medicine at the University of Barcelona
- Chair of the Spanish Government Research Agency Cancer Study Section.
- Chair of the Academics committee at the IRB Barcelona
- Coordinator of the ADAPMET H2023-MSC-ITN network on metastasis
- Member of the Scientific advisory board of Breast Cancer Now’s Research Unit - ICR London. (UK).
- Steering Committee of the CIBER 10 year anniversary Meeting
- Scientific Advisory Board Inbiomotion and ONA therapeutics
- MAF test lab developed product reach market and first patient tested