The prestigious journal Nature Medicine includes in its May's number a work cosigned by the Asturian researcher Guillermo García Santos, graduated at the University of Oviedo and University of Oviedo Foundation Award for Applied Research in 2010.

García Santos carries out research at the Well Cornell Medical College of New York and the research published has been done in collaboration with the Memorial Sloan-Kattering Cancer Center of New York, two of the most prestigious institutions in the field of Biomedicine in the USA.

The article entitled Melanoma exosomes educate bone marrow progenitor cells toward a pro-metastatic phenotype through MET explains why exosomes could be considered the new cancer therapeutic targets. The research gives way to a future simple blood analysis being enough to diagnose and prevent metastasis in melanoma tumours.

Guillermo García Santos' research team has studied the exosome compartments within the bloodstream, how they generate and take part in tumour progression. Their experiments have determined that these microvesicles generate a favorable environment for the development of metastasis.

The study gives light to the blocking of tumoral exosomes, which could be considered new cancer therapeutic targets in trying to block tumoral progression and metastasis.

Guillermo García Santos is Professor of Biology at the University of Oviedo and has worked for the Oncology Institute of the Principality of Asturias (IUOPA). In 2010 he was granted the Award for Applied Research by the University of Oviedo Foundation, thanks to which he could set the basis for an active collaboration with Doctor David Lyden's Laboratory in New York, where he currently carries out his research, funded by the Clarín Program of the Principality of Asturias.