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New H2020 project led by Dr Torres, one of the Leducq REDOX Coordinators

  • Dr Miguel Torres, CNIC, leads a new EU project that will receive €8 million in funding over 5 years
  • REANIMA addresses one of the greatest challenges in biomedicine: translating knowledge of regenerative biology from the laboratory to clinical applications, in this case regeneration of the heart
  • In addition to the CNIC, another 11 European research centers are participating in this innovative project

Madrid, October 29, 2019. Research into new endogenous mechanisms of tissue regeneration is an innovative research avenue in cardiac regeneration. This is the central goal of the REANIMA project (New‐generation cardiac therapeutic strategies directed to the activation of endogenous regenerative mechanisms), a research program coordinated by Dr Miguel Torres at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) and supported by €8 million funding over 5 years, of which €1,380,000 will be directly managed at the CNIC. The project will launch in January 2020.

“REANIMA addresses one of the big challenges in biomedicine: how to successfully translate knowledge gleaned from basic research on biological regeneration into medical applications, in this case the regeneration of the heart,” said Dr Torres.Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world. The associated heart failure is a worldwide epidemic that imposes a heavy societal burden in death, disease, and escalating economic costs and can only be resolved by heart transplantation. The inability of the human heart to regenerate myocardium lost during a heart attack is the major factor in a high proportion of cases of heart failure. To resolve this problem, Dr Torres said that “the goal of REANIMA is to provide new therapies for heart regeneration.” Until now, clinical trials based on the introduction of stem cells into the heart have not shown regenerative capacity. However, studies of spontaneous and induced heart regeneration in animal models suggest that the path to progress lies in the reactivation of endogenous regenerative mechanisms. Fish and amphibians are able to regenerate their hearts, and although mammals have historically been considered to lack this capacity, regeneration was recently shown to occur in injured hearts of newborn mice. Unfortunately, in adult mammals, including humans, the heart’s residual capacity to regenerate is insufficient to recover function naturally.

REANIMA, said Dr Torres, “will exhaustively analyze knowledge accumulated from research in animal models in order to transform it into new regenerative therapies to resolve heart failure.” The project brings together knowledge obtained from species that can regenerate their hearts

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Dr. Miguel Torres, one of the REDOX network coordinators, elected a member of EMBO

EMBO promotes excellence in scientific research, and one of its major goals is to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers

Dr. Miguel Torres, a group leader at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC), has been elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). EMBO today named the 56 new members who will form part of this organization of more than 1800 leading scientists from Europe and around the world.

EMBO Director Maria Leptin explained that “EMBO members are expert scientists who carry out pioneering research across all disciplines in the life sciences, from computer models or analysis of individual molecules and cell mechanisms to the study of higher-level systems in development, cognitive neuroscience, and evolution.”

Dr. Miguel Torres’s scientific research focuses on the regulation of embryonic development and the formation and regeneration of organs. His major contributions include the understanding of how gene activities regulate regionalization processes in the developing embryo and the discovery of mechanisms involved in quality control and organ regeneration.

Dr. Torres formed his group at the CNB-CSIC in Madrid in 1996, where he developed his research into vertebrate organ formation, including projects investigating the limbs and the heart. A major focus of his work on organogenesis is homeodomain genes, and his research in this area has contributed to the understanding of the molecular interactions that regulate the correct formation of distinct regions in the embryo.

Dr. Miguel Torres’s research centers on understanding the regulation of embryonic development and the formation and regeneration of organs.

In the field of tissue homeostasis, his work has contributed to understanding the conservation of cell death pathways in the animal kingdom and has demonstrated the physiological relevance of ‘cell competition’ in mammals. His contributions in this area demonstrate the importance of cell competition in maintaining pluripotency in early embryonic development and its possible role in cardiac regeneration.

In the last ten years, his research has extended to the investigation of how tissue morphogenesis and homeostasis are determined by cell behaviour. This line of research has involved the introduction of new techniques, including new genetic and methodological tools for 3-dimensional microscopy of the developing embryo. Dr. Torres described how his group’s work has “established the first technique for the in vivo microscopy of the developing heart in mouse embryos, and this has enabled us to propose a new model of the formation of the heart

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