EATRIS is an organisation that brings together over 150 translational medicine institutes. This means that many amazing treatments and innovations are being developed every day for the benefit of the patients. As a part of the Spanish Spotlight Programme, we are highlighting some of the promising research happening in EATRIS Spain.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Maria Jose Torres, the Head of the Unit of Allergic Diseases, at Malaga Regional University Hospital and a Full professor at Malaga University, Faculty of Medicine.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am the Head of the Allergy Unit and the Allergy Research Group and Full Professor in Medicine at the Hospital Regional Universitario de Malaga, IBIMA-Plataforma BIONAND and the University of Malaga in Spain. Our clinical department takes care of >1.5 million people (adolescents and adults) with all types of allergic diseases including chronic rhinitis and rhinosinusitis, asthma, eczema, chronic urticaria and angioedema, food allergy, drug allergy, hymenoptera venom allergy, eosinophilic esophagitis, mastocytosis, etc.
Our research group consists of more than 30 researchers from different disciplines (physicians with different medical backgrounds, nurses, biologists, bioinformaticians, chemists, etc.) and has three main research lines: drug allergy, food allergy and respiratory diseases. I also undertake many teaching duties in the Medical School of the University of Malaga, both lectures and practical/clinical training. I was also responsible for the inclusion of the Allergology subject in the training curricula of my university’s medical students. Additionally, in June 2024 I was appointed as the President of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, after having served on the Executive Committee for the last 7 years.
How are you connected to EATRIS?
The research institute in which we are integrated (IBIMA-Plataforma BIONAND) is a member of EATRIS through the Spanish participation coordinated by the Institute de Salud Carlos III (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness). Members of our group were present at the EATRIS 10th Anniversary Conference held in The Hague (the Netherlands) in December 2023.
What is your current research focusing on and what’s the potential impact on human health?
Our main scientific interest in the respiratory field is related to the identification of allergy and allergic mechanisms in patients with chronic rhinitis and asthma. We have optimised the diagnosis of airway allergy through the standardisation of clinical tools like nasal and bronchial allergen provocations, in addition to the basophil activation test. Moreover, we conducted independent clinical trials of allergen immunotherapy for recently identified phenotypes of airway allergy and generated a registry and database for real-life use of biologicals in severe chronic rhinosinusitis and asthma. These advances permit the proper diagnosis of patients with different phenotypes of allergic rhinitis and asthma, so they can be selected for early interventions with disease-modifying potential like allergen immunotherapy.
Therefore, our research has a very strong clinical interest, as it helps identify biomarkers with diagnostic and prognostic interest, in addition to therapy response. We have been continuously funded for the last 15 years by regional and national agencies, and since 2024 we coordinate work packages in two European projects: a Joint Action on chronic respiratory diseases and a Research and Innovation Action on the capacity of AI to predict the impact of climate change and pollution on allergic rhinitis outcomes.
What challenges do you face in this field/ your research, and how do you approach overcoming them?
Funding is always a challenge in our research field, especially considering global threats like economic arrest, war, climate change or global warming. We managed to secure funding from Spanish agencies for our research in the last decade, but we also started to analyse and become knowledgeable about funding opportunities in the European scene. Members from our group regularly attend European networking and informative events (e.g. Innovative Health Initiative Brokerage Event in Brussels in November 2024) to identify potential calls, projects and valuable research partners.
Our institute from Malaga (IBIMA-Plataforma BIONAND) is also very helpful in this regard, through the Office of International Projects, and its membership in platforms like EATRIS. Our group is also very active in the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, through which we also find collaborators and research opportunities. Other challenges for the research activity are connected to the need to recruit talented members for our group. Research institutes are becoming increasingly international and multilingual, but it is still difficult to identify and hire the best candidates in the global competition.
How do you incorporate patient engagement or collaboration into your research process, and why do you think it’s important?
The patient voice is of the foremost importance for both our clinical and research activities. Our clinical department is recognised by the Regional Institute of Health Quality as a “Unit of Excellence” and we annually organise meetings with patient representatives. In those meetings, we update them on the different services offered by our clinical department, in addition to the research advances we have participated in. Our hospital also counts on a Multidisciplinary Severe Asthma Unit which is also certified as a “Unit of Excellence” by the Spanish Society for Allergology and Clinical Immunology. Through this unit, we arrange meetings with a focal group of patients to learn about their healthcare experience and to identify areas where there is room for improvement.
In summary, we have bi-directional communication with our patients: we regularly inform them about the clinical assistance they can get from us and about the research advances in their disease field, and they report to us about their experience and the most relevant outcomes for them so we can identify research priorities for future projects.
What future trends or technologies in translational medicine excite you the most, and how might they influence your work?
There are many but for me, the omics sciences offer an outstanding opportunity for translational research and precision medicine in the field of asthma and allergic diseases. Through transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic analysis we have been able to identify the relevant mechanisms of many conditions and define properly the different disease endotypes and phenotypes. Some of these advances have translated into clinically applicable biomarkers with the help of bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, and big data analysis. Many discoveries are still in a preliminary state and require further refinement for clinical implementation, but I am sure that in the near future we will witness a revolution in the way allergic diseases and asthma are managed in the clinic.
What has been the most rewarding moment in your career as a research scientist so far?
It is overall an exciting time in science full of opportunities and moments to feel happy and passionate. Every discovery addressing an unmet need in the clinic is rewarding, as it holds the hope of one day translating into an improvement in patients’ quality of life. I recall when the chemical structures we developed to improve in vivo beta-lactam allergy diagnosis were commercialised and reached the medical market. Nowadays, those devices are routinely used in the clinic and I hope they have helped many clinicians and patients to achieve a more accurate diagnosis of drug allergic reactions.
