An emerging research group, independent of any institution, working on the development, adaptation and optimisation of mathematical tools for the computational analysis of cancer.
Two members, based in Málaga, Spain. The laboratory holds no institutional affiliation of its own; the affiliations listed under Team are personal.
Research
Three lines, all of them methodological: the object of study is the mathematical tool, not a particular tumour type.
Combining prognostic models of different natures, each already validated in its own cohort, into a single swarm. Two objectives: a more efficient personalisation of prognosis for an individual patient than any component model gives alone, and an explicit ranking of the risk factors that weigh most in that estimate. The methodological problem is how to weight and combine models validated on cohorts that do not share variables or endpoints.
Assembling cohorts by aggregating patients from separate published studies, for use as new cohorts or as a comparator or control arm for a study that has none. The work is in harmonising variables and endpoints across studies of different design, and in keeping the provenance of every patient attached to the record.
Hybrid informative methods based on Bayesian networks, together with neural-network-based simulators, to build a digital twin of an individual oncology patient: a model on which analyses and studies can be run in place of the patient.
MOCCA:Lab sells nothing. Methods developed here are used in the software built by zaalen, S.L.
Team
The laboratory has no other staff and no students.
PhD, MD, MScEng
Principal investigator
Aeronautical engineer, Universidad de Sevilla, with the master's year at RWTH Aachen in spacecraft and biomedical engineering. Medicine at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, with clinical rotations at Universitätsklinikum Tübingen and at the German National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg.
Medical oncology residency at Hospital Regional Universitario de Málaga. MSc in neuro-oncology, CEU Cardenal Herrera. PhD in health sciences, UCAM. Visiting research scientist in artificial intelligence for oncology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, 2022. Director of the HM Hospitales CIOCC Clara Campal comprehensive oncology centre in Málaga since 2022.
Principal investigator of QOPPA, MOWGLI and SMALLBRAIN. Member of ASCO, ESMO and the Spanish societies for medical oncology, neuro-oncology research and lung cancer research.
MScEng
Research project management
Bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture, Universitat Politècnica de València, 2012, with a stay at RWTH Aachen. MSc in building information modelling management, 2018, Animum Creativity Advanced School, associated with Universidad San Pablo CEU.
More than ten years in project management; currently a consultant in information-technology project management.
In the laboratory, project management: scope, planning and documentation.
The affiliations above are personal. They are listed so that the work can be traced, not to claim endorsement from any of those institutions.
Publications
Peer-reviewed articles and international conference contributions, 2021 to 2026, most recent first. Most of this record predates the laboratory and comes from the clinical and neuro-oncology work of its principal investigator; the methodological lines above are more recent and have not produced publications of their own yet.
Journal of Clinical Medicine (MDPI)
Proceedings of the 3rd International Online Conference on Clinical Medicine. MDPI, Basel
Proceedings of the X Doctoral Research Conference, Universidad Católica de Murcia. ISBN 978-84-18579-19-6
American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, Chicago
American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, Chicago
National Comprehensive Cancer Network Annual Conference
Oncologic Emergency Medicine Conference, MD Anderson Cancer Center
European Society for Medical Oncology Congress
American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, Chicago
National meetings and clinical case series are not listed here. Full record available on request.
Contact
We work with clinical groups, academic departments and laboratories on the methodological side of a study: cohort assembly, analysis design and modelling. We also take part in grant applications as a methodological partner.
