Guanajuato, Gto., August 9, 2016.- In Mexico and the world, the main cause of death by disease among children is leukemia, a type of blood and bone marrow cancer that is usually treated with chemotherapy. However, researchers such as M.A. Juan Carlos Balandrán, explore new alternatives to eliminate the leukemia cells without damaging the healthy cells.

M.A. Balandrán, graduate from the degree in Chemist-Pharmacist-Biologist from the University of Guanajuato, current Ph.D. student at Molecular Biomedicine from CINVESTAV, collaborates in a novelty project to generate tridimensional platforms that simulate the properties of the bone marrow, the organ where leukemia begins and progresses.

The researcher explained that given the complexity of the Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the lab lacks models to study it. With tridimensional platforms they seek to give the cells a support similar to the one they have in the bone marrow, to try and maintain and study them since they are fragile cells in conventional cultures conditions, "in the Ph.D. I'm trying to discover what are the factors they need to grow and be able to put them as a therapeutic target," he pointed.

At 27, M.A. Balandrán collaborates in the Medical Research Unit on Oncological Diseases at the National Medical Center Siglo XXI, from the "Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), where he arrived little over four years ago to incorporate in the laboratory led by Dr. Rosana Pelayo, who is renowned in the scientific community by her research in biology of Infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

During the master's, his research work led Juan Carlos Balandrán to make a stay in a laboratory led by Dr. Mónica Guzmán –also a UG grad—an expert in the field of leukemia stem cells and the generation on new specific drugs, capable of eliminating them without damaging the healthy cells.

At Dr. Guzmán's Lab at the Well Cornell Medical College, located in Manhattan, M.A. Balandrán learned a new technique to study the hematopoiesis (blood forming process).

It is about a xenotransplantation model to study live leukemia cells through lab animals, a technique that doesn't exist in Mexico to study the blood and disease. Juan Carlos Balandrán will be one of the pioneers in Mexico, who together with CINVESTAV's team will start this technique that will help understand why leukemia in the Mexican child population have the worst prognosis in the world, and contribute in the search for better alternative for the patients.