María José Sánchez, researcher: “Cancer is like a pandemic. We need more funding”
María José Sánchez Pérez ranks eighth out of more than 5 researchers in the Ranking of Spanish and Foreign Researchers Working in Spain. The scientist has spoken to Consalud.es about this recognition and her projects
For the first time, it has been published Ranking of Spanish and Foreign Women Researchers Working in Spain, who has prepared the Superior Council of Scientific Investigations (CSIC) within its gender equality policies. To prepare the first edition of this ranking, corresponding to June 2022, the CSIC has used the database of Academic google, specializing in science content and bibliography.
Maria Jose Sanchez Perez, a scientist at the Andalusian School of Public Health, occupies the eighth place out of more than 5.000 researchers. Study Medicine and a doctorate from the University of Granada. During his residency, he specialized in Clinical Microbiology and Parasitology and throughout his life he has been in constant training. She has extensive experience in the design and development of epidemiological studies and research projects related to the etiology, care and survival of patients with cancer, having led and collaborated in more than 25 research projects at a European, national and regional level. Likewise, the results of these projects have been reflected in more than 150 publications in the last 5 years.
How did your passion for research begin?
I am a doctor and I specialized in microbiology. When I passed the MIR, I started working where I am currently working, in the Andalusian School of Public Health, in a research project on human papilloma virus and oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancer. It was an international project that allowed me to participate in all phases of this research work. In other words, the project had already been awarded but I was the one who carried out everything from the interview to the scientific articles, so I participated in the different phases.
It was really when in those years I realized that this was what I really liked, although the training I had was more linked to microbiology. When I started working on this project, I had already done my doctoral thesis and it was really when I realized that I really like research and everything related to cancer. I started to train more and until today.
Currently, what are your lines of research?
I work mainly in epidemiology and cancer control surveillance. Specifically, my team and I have three lines of research. I direct a population cancer registry, one of the 14 registries in Spain, specifically the Granada Cancer Registry. The first branch of research is to know the incidence, survival and prevalence of cancer cases. From this, we participate in many research projects, both internationally, trying to collect and know this data both for rare cancers and for cancer in general. We also work with survival data, because it has been found that the survival rate is higher in women than in men.
Then we have a second important line that is also led by a research project. Is he European Prospective Study on Nutrition (EPIC). In addition, we not only work with cancer, we also work with other cardiovascular, neurological, diabetes diseases... although it is true that when the project was born in the 90s it was focused on cancer.
"We know that cancer is a public health problem and that the forecasts and estimates that there are are that there are going to be more and more cases of cancer"
On the other hand, we have a third line of research that is more oriented towards health care for cancer patients. In other words, how cancer is diagnosed and treated, why there is survival in different areas of Europe and the US, why there is a geographical difference in survival within the same country... These are what we call high-resolution studies. , in which we collect a lot of clinical information from people with cancer, but always from a population perspective.
One last line, which we have started recently, is that we work on economic inequalities in cancer and we already have several projects financed by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) and the Carlos III Institute. With this work, we want to see how socioeconomic inequalities influence these epidemiological indicators of cancer.
Given that throughout your professional career you have been linked to cancer, what is it that draws your attention to studying this disease?
The cancer research that we do is research in which we always work with population data, and what we can obtain is a very different view of the entire population. So, I find it satisfying to see that everything we are doing in our projects contributes to the knowledge of cancer.
More than 60 scientific articles have been published every year since 2000. Imagine a study that has followed up the cohort for more than 25 years and that serves to advance scientific knowledge and learn about the causes of cancer, and I What I like the most is being able to work in this line that guides and serves primary prevention.
We know that cancer is a public health problem and that there are forecasts and estimates that there are going to be more and more cases of cancer. Therefore, we have to act a lot in cancer prevention. In that sense, everything I do in the field of primary and secondary prevention gives me great satisfaction because one hopes that it can be implemented and thus reduce the magnitude of cancer in our country.
Are you optimistic about increasing cancer cures in the future?
I believe that cancer should be considered as a chronic disease. When we talk about cancer, we talk about the more than 200 types that exist. If we speak in general terms, survival is between 55 and 60% in 5 years. Survival trends have improved a lot over time, which means that many cancers are going to be cured, although it is true that for many other cancers the gains have been smaller.
I believe that much progress has been made in some areas such as immunotherapy or the different types of radiotherapy, which are becoming more and more precise, and a lot of research is being done in clinical trials to better understand what the best treatment is. It is the path of progress, of personalized and precision medicine, and that we can work and identify biomarkers that can help us to know which is the best treatment for each person, so we will be closer to patients who live as long as possible with the highest possible quality of life.
I believe that cancer, if we speak as a whole, all types of cancer will not be able to be cured in the coming years, but there is a very significant percentage that will be cured. The rest, we have to consider it as a disease and pretend that it is a chronic disease like other sick people and that patients learn to live with it and that in the long run we have more survivors.
What is your assessment of the progress of cancer research?
I believe that much progress has been made in cancer research, both in primary prevention, as well as the causes of cancer and in aspects related to treatment. Also with diagnostic techniques so that we can make more precise diagnoses and in treatments, of course, I think that probably if there is something left to do is to advance more in research in terms of health care, and continue advancing because there are many treatments that we still do not know and that we still don't know what the best treatment is for some types of cancer.
Do you think that the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down support for research?
The pandemic caught us all by surprise. That's where the research that was done in most hospitals to dedicate ourselves to health care stopped. Clinical trials and basic research in research centers were also stopped, but after the first year of the pandemic, we have been able to recover it.
“During the first years, many resources were dedicated to research on Covid-19, as it could not be otherwise, but this should not mean a decrease in cancer research”
For people who work with cancer, they know that this disease is like a pandemic, as Covid-19 has been, and it is something we have to be vigilant about. During the first years, many resources were dedicated to the investigation of Covid-19, as it could not be otherwise, but this should not mean a decrease in cancer research.
In fact, the European funding program has a specific item for cancer research, and although I think that at the beginning of the pandemic there was much more funding for Covid-19 projects than for cancer, but now I think that cancer is still your priority. Also, since it is a public health problem, it will always have funding, but it is true that funding for cancer is scarce both in our country and in others, but especially in Spain. We need more funding for cancer, although we are lucky to have the AECC, which heavily funds many projects.
How do you feel being in eighth place on the CSIC's list of Spanish researchers?
It makes me a little embarrassed, but it really is an acknowledgment not only to me, but to the research teams behind me and also to the people who were my teachers who somehow made it easier for me to participate in research projects. with many years of experience and a great scientific production.
I think it is important, on the other hand, for women to make the leap, not only at the research level, but also to occupy managerial positions and be in the forefront directing research groups. As a woman, I am satisfied with the fact of being there in that ranking, as the first Andalusian woman too, and of course representing my city.