In this talk we present a summary of our latest results on the investigation of three-body systems with explicit/hidden charm and with explicit/hidden strangeness. To be more concrete, in case of systems with explicit strangeness, we pay attention to: (1) $K D D $ and (2) $K D\bar D^*$. In the first system, a charm $+2$, isospin $1/2$ and strangeness $+1$ state is obtained with a mass around 4140 MeV, while in the second one, a $K^*$ state, with hidden charm, and a mass close to 4307 MeV is found. We have also studied a system of mesons with hidden strangeness, $DK\bar K$, and a system with a baryon and hidden charm, zero strangeness, $ND\bar D^*$. In the former case a $D$-meson with mass around 2900 MeV is found to be generated, while in the latter one several $N^*$ and $\Delta^*$ states with hidden charm are obtained with masses around $4600$ MeV. All these states constitute predictions of our model and future experimental confirmation of them would be relevant to elucidate the properties of the strong interactions in the presence of heavy quarks.