34 biomedical research projects with potential social impact receive 26 million in funding from the ”la Caixa” Foundation

The 2025 edition of the Health Research Call from the ”la Caixa” Foundation has selected 34 new cutting-edge biomedical research projects, awarding each of them up to one million euros. The projects are led by 25 research centres, universities and hospitals in Spain, and nine in Portugal.

This eighth edition of the call received 714 proposals in basic, clinical and translational research, and is particularly aimed at tackling major health challenges in several areas: neurosciences, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, oncology, infectious diseases and enabling technologies in any of these fields.

This year, agreements with the Breakthrough T1D Foundation and the Fundación Luzón have made it possible to place a stronger emphasis on funding initiatives focused on type 1 diabetes – two projects have been selected – and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), with one project chosen. The call is also carried out in collaboration with the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), a public body linked to Portugal’s Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, which is allocating 1.8 million euros to fund three of the nine Portuguese projects awarded this year.

Among this year’s selected projects are, for example, initiatives aimed at uncovering hidden cardiac risks linked to cancer treatments, improving the maturation of beta cells for diabetes therapy, creating a reliable system to test spinal injury medications without animal experimentation, studying why some patients are able to suppress HIV without treatment, or developing a universal CAR-T cell that targets several types of cancer.

This edition also features support for six research projects aimed at developing treatments for rare paediatric diseases, such as Myhre syndrome, treatment-resistant T-cell leukaemia – a rare and aggressive form of childhood leukaemia – or hypoxic–ischaemic encephalopathy, which causes brain injury in newborns.

In the words of Àngel Font, assistant general manager of Research and Fellowships at the ”la Caixa” Foundation, “Biomedical research is one of the most powerful ways to improve people’s lives. The 34 awarded projects tackle very different challenges from a range of perspectives, but they all share three essential pillars for moving towards a more hopeful future for patients and their families: collaboration, talent and innovation.”

Presentation of the competitive funding awards

The CosmoCaixa Science Museum will host the award ceremony this afternoon, attended by several representatives of the ”la Caixa” Foundation including the assistant general manager of Research and Fellowships, Àngel Font, and the deputy general manager, Esther Planas. Also present will be the president of the Fundación Luzón, María José Arregui, the senior vice-president at Breakthrough T1D, Esther Latres, and the board member of the Conselho Directivo da Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Paula Diogo, along with the researchers leading the selected projects.

This year, the call allocates 26 million euros to outstanding biomedical research. It awards up to 500,000 euros to projects involving a single research institution and up to one million euros for research consortia made up of multiple institutions. In this edition, the consortium projects include collaboration with research groups from seven countries.

Since the programme began in 2018, the total funding awarded through the ”la Caixa” Foundation Health Research Call has reached 172.3 million euros for 234 projects, of which 162 are led by Spanish teams and 72 by research groups in Portugal. Today, it stands as one of the leading biomedical and health research calls in the Iberian Peninsula.