From the Aula Magna of the Altabix building on the Elche campus of the Miguel Hernandez Universityhe Spanish biochemist and scientist, Mariano Barbacid, He admits with a laugh that when he gives talks in Spanish it always takes him ten minutes longer to finish them. Barbacid, who has just spoken to a hundred people about precision medicine, He emigrated to the United States in 1974. where he started as an intern and ended up directing the department of National Cancer Institute Maryland Oncology.
At 48 he returned to Spain and has been, since then, the head of the Experimental Oncology Group of the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO). However, it was in 1982 when this biochemist discovered the first human H-RAS oncogene and identified the first mutation responsible for the development of cancer in humans.
Now, the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM) has organized a screening of the documentary for its 60th anniversary “The reverse path”a projection that talks about his life and that could be seen this Thursday at the Cervantes de Sax Theater.
The “Reverse Path” talks about his relationship with science as something intrinsic to his life
It is a documentary that explains how we discovered the first oncogene, but I am not responsible for it, it was not my ideal (laughs). I started in this association, the SEBBM, and I have an anecdote that when we presented the results of the first cancer mutation in 1982 We did it for the first time at the congress of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry, because the last two letters, those of Molecular Biology, had not yet been added.
Seeing your career captured in this documentary, what have you been able to appreciate?
Well, where I go depends on how long my brain lasts. What I can say is that I have the same enthusiasm as 30 years ago when I returned to Spain and while it lasts I need two things: so that my head doesn’t get messed up anymore and I still have enough financingbecause today financing in Spain is so limited that there are many things that could be done better and that unfortunately cannot be done.
Is the situation so serious?
There is a huge problem. To give you an idea I now have less government funding than in 2009 and it has been 14 years., it seems that we are going backwards and that is very bad for the country. What seems obvious is that politicians are not interested in us at all. During the entire electoral campaign this year, the word science has not appeared in any debate and what research really needs is funding. If the government now doubled the amount allocated for research, it would continue being a very small amount compared to GDP and yet, you hear the stratospheric figures for European funds and you think that with just a part of them we would have an incentive that would change the landscape of research in Spain.
“I have the same hope as 30 years ago, I only need two things: my head doesn’t break and more funding”
At what point is research in our country?
There are a few groups that are competitive but obviously It’s hard to compete when you don’t have the same level of resources.. It is not a question of training, Spain trains scientists very well, and it is not a vocation problem either., because technological careers are increasingly full at universities. But there are two big problems: financing, which we have already talked about, and that there is a lot of Spanish talent outside of Spain.
Are you talking about the “brain drain”?
In Spain we have the bad habit of saying that there are “brain drain”a term that bothers me a lot, because we are not running away, we are leaving to train. I myself was away for 24 years and I didn’t escape., and that was Franco’s time and he had more reasons (laughs). The problem is not going out, going out is essential to training, the real problem is the return.
Is it difficult for scientists to return to Spain?
Yes, and I hope the Ministry realizes this. There are many Spaniards who left who now have teaching positions in universities and research centers and who do not return not because they do not want to but because the conditions that exist in Spain, which in some cases I would dare say they are insulting.has nothing to do with those that are being offered in United Kingdom, Switzerland or the United States. A few months ago I was in Geneva giving a talk to a group of Spanish scientists who work in France, Italy or Switzerland and they all told me that they would love to return to Spain. But they don’t do it, not because of the salary, which also has an influence, but because they say that they would lack resources to be able to investigate.
Can we say that we are behind in research?
I don’t know if in line, but yes we are in a place that does not belong to us now here near.
Does this put us further away from ending cancer?
No, cancer cannot be ended because it is as if you are telling me that we are going to end deaths. As Americans say, in this life there are only two certain things “death and taxes”, death and taxes, and no one can take that away from us. But in cancer there is a lot of improvement with therapies, immunotherapy and precision medicine are less than 25 years old and have changed a lot not only in survival levels but also in the quality of life of patients.
We are talking about cancer but, in reality, there are many different cancers.
What happens with cancer is that we call it singular and that is harmful to public opinion because we believe that it is just a disease. And of course, breast or prostate cancer, where the survival expectancy is more than 90%, is not the same as pancreatic cancer, in which survival is less than 5%. You can’t just say cancer because it’s not just one, what you say you have to qualify it.
A few days ago the news broke that there are some cockles with transmissible leukemia. Is cancer also contagious among humans?
Fortunately Cancers are not contagious in humans. There is only one cervical cancer caused by the human papillomavirus, but this cancer practically does not exist in Spain, it represents about 50 cases a year and is very rare.
Another issue that is raising more alerts is the fact that it seems that there are increasingly younger people who are being diagnosed with cancer.
It seems that way, epidemiologists don’t know exactly why, but it does seem that there is aincrease in cancer cases among young people between 45 and 50 years old. They are not different cancers, they are the same but they appear in younger people. Cancer as we know it has two peaks, one smaller, which is pediatric, which appears in the first two or three years of life and normally disappears except in rare cases, and then starts again at 60 or 65. years. In the end, a third of men die from cancer, there is no other option.
“I don’t like to talk about brain drain, scientists go out to train but the difficult thing is always coming back”
Despite the statistics, are there habits that worsen our predisposition, such as smoking or having a poor diet?
Smoking is the main one, We cannot compare lack of exercise with smoke. The best thing we can do to avoid getting cancer is to stop smoking, period. The rest of the things also influence, but in cancer we have two clear causes: having chronic inflammation, as in cases of stomach cancer or a person with chronic pancreatitis who is more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, and smoking. In places where smoking has been banned in public spaces, cancer has been reduced by half, More people have not had cancer thanks to quitting smoking than thanks to new therapies that have been developed. It seems outrageous but it is a reality.
We see many young people starting to smoke, how is this going to affect the future?
Well, we know how it will affect us because we have already experienced it. Lung cancer was the least common cancer before the First World War. After her many people, especially men, started smoking, and after the Second World War more and more women started smoking. At that time the incidents were parallel. In life there are only two fundamental things: that smoking is avoidable and that the only inevitable thing is getting older.
What treatments lies in the future of the fight against cancer?
Chemotherapy remains the most common treatment but it is alsoThere is no such thing as precision medicine and immunotherapy which are very effective for other types of tumors. For example, immunotherapy is one that has had the most beneficial effects in melanoma and lung cases.
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Where does the future of cancer research lie?
Of course, in improving. I cannot predict what will happen next year but the important thing now is to look at the last 25 years and see how much we have advanced, which is incredible. So, I have hope that the same progress will be made in the next 25 years. I can’t say what field they will be in, the advances are small leaps, they are very timid, but they put you in a place you weren’t in 25 years ago. Simply looking back at all the progress we have made since 1998 must give us a lot of hope. that in the next 25 years at least as much progress will be made.