The mission of the Cancer Research Foundation of the University of Salamanca (FICUS) is to support the research work of the Cancer Research Centre (CIC). CIC integrates internationally competitive research groups, oriented towards the understanding of the cancer cell at all basic, translational and clinical levels. It has adopted a structure that resembles the one of the US Comprehensive Cancer Centres, a model that has shown to have a potential that favours the existence of a multidisciplinary vision of the cancer cell at the same time allowing a rapid transfer of the results of the laboratory field to the society.