Joaquín Arribas, PhD

2008-2009 BCRF Project:
A subgroup of breast cancers express a series of truncated forms of the HER2 receptor known as carboxy terminal fragments of HER2 (HER2 CTFs). Patients positive for CTFs have worse outcome and are more likely to develop metastasis.

With funding from BRCF last year, Dr. Arribas and colleagues performed a comprehensive analysis of these CTFs and showed that one of them, named 611-CTF, is an hyperactive oncogenic form of HER2, although the mechanism of activation is unknown, that controls the expression of genes involved in malignant transformation and metastasis. In the coming year, they propose experiments aimed to identify the mechanism of activation 611-CTF and will continue the mechanistic study analyzing the role of candidate genes in 611-CTF-driven metastasis. This goal will allow identifying novel therapeutic targets that, along with inhibitors of HER2, will improve treatment of 611-CTF positive cancers.

Bio:
Joaquín Arribas is the Director of the Medical Oncology Research Program at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain, where he leads a group focussed on the study of growth factors, growth factor receptors as well as the proteases involved in remodeling the cell surface. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Translational Oncology and CDB Protein Systems.

Dr. Arribas is member of the Spanish and American Societies of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and President of the Committee for the Evaluation of research project on Cancer of the "Carlos III" health institute, the major public funding agency in Spain.

Dr. Arribas completed his undergraduate studies in biochemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1987. At the same university, he subsequently worked on the regulation of the catalytic activities of the proteasome and received a Ph. D. in biology in 1991. Sponsored by a fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, he joined the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA) as a postdoctoral fellow to work with Dr. Joan Massagué (1992-1996) on the proteolytic processing of transmembrane growth factors. In 1997, he joined the oncology department at Hospital Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona as a staff scientist and was promoted to lead the oncology research department in 2001. His research has been recognized by an EMBO Young Investigator Programme (YIP) award and the Beckman Coulter award to the Best Young Spanish Investigator in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.