Support of 25.7 million for basic, clinical and translational research projects in biomedicine

The ”la Caixa” Foundation has selected 29 new biomedical research projects of excellence with a high social impact as part of the CaixaResearch Health Call 2024, endowed with 25.7 million euros, so that they can be conducted in research centres, hospitals and universities in Spain and Portugal.

The call, to which 580 proposals of basic, clinic and translational research were submitted in this seventh edition, is particularly focused on addressing such health challenges in different thematic areas: infectious diseases (7 projects have been selected), oncology (6), cardiovascular and related metabolic diseases (5) and neurosciences (5). Furthermore, six other selected initiatives will develop enabling technologies in one of these fields.

Among this year’s selected projects are initiatives aimed at exploring new strategies to tackle the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis or to combat heart disease; improving the understanding of obesity-associated liver disease; developing a synthetic retina to restore vision in cases of blindness due to retinitis pigmentosa; understanding how the parasite that causes sleeping sickness invades tissues; generating human organs in host animals from stem cells; and creating a replica of the colon tumour ecosystem on a chip to study the efficacy of immunotherapies.

The grants provide funding of up to 500,000 euros for projects submitted by a single research organisation and up to one million euros for projects presented by consortia comprising two to five research organisations.Proposals will have a duration of up to 3 years.

This year, the 29 projects selected are led by scientists from 11 Spanish and six Portuguese centres. The consortium projects include collaboration with research groups from the Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, Italy, Israel and Australia.

CaixaForum Madrid today hosted the award ceremony, which was attended by representatives of the ”la Caixa” Foundation, including the deputy general manager, Juan Ramón Fuertes; the chair of the Foundation’s scientific committee, Javier Solana; the director of relations with research and health institutions, Ignasi López; the trustee of the Foundation and honorary chair of the Banco Português de Investimento (BPI), Artur Santos Silva, and the member of the BPI's Social Responsibility Committee, José Pena do Amaral. Also in attendance were the president of the Luzón Foundation, María José Arregui, and the chair of the Board of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Madalena Alves, as well as the researchers leading the projects.

In the words of the deputy general manager of the ”la Caixa” Foundation, Juan Ramón Fuertes, “This ceremony aims to be more than just an acknowledgement of the winning projects. We want it to be an opportunity for researchers to connect with each other and to foster scientific synergies and collaborations with a goal that unites us all: to build the future of health together.”

A competitive and collaborative call

The initiative is carried out in collaboration with the FCT, public organism linked to Portuguese Ministry of Education Science and Innovation, which is providing 2.4 million euros to subsidise 3 of the 9 Portuguese projects selected in this edition. The call is also supported by the Luzón Foundation which, together with the ”la Caixa” Foundation, is co-funding a project on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

The CaixaResearch Health call is competitive and engages highly prestigious international experts in their fields of study to select the projects with the greatest scientific excellence and social impact. Since the start of the programme in 2018, total funding for the call has reached 145.7 million euros for 200 projects, 137 of them led by Spanish teams and 63 by research groups in Portugal. This is currently the most important philanthropic call for biomedical and health research in Spain and Portugal. 

Researchers can submit their projects until November 20 to qualify for a grant in the 2025 call. As a new feature in the next edition, projects focusing on rare paediatric diseases and type 1 diabetes will have the opportunity to receive specific funding within the framework of collaborations with the Sant Joan de Déu Research Foundation and the Breakthrough T1D Foundation, respectively.