Raquel Seruca Award honors i3S breast cancer research

Researcher Flávia Castro, from the «Tumour and Microenvironment Interactions» group, was the winner of the Raquel Seruca Award, promoted by the Portuguese Association for Research in Cancer (ASPIC). With an award of two thousand euros, the prize was given to the best oral communication presented at the 5th International Congress of the Association.

Created with the aim of honoring the doctor and researcher Raquel Seruca (1962-2022), whose career has unequivocally contributed to research in Oncology at a national and international level, this award “constitutes a way of supporting scientific development and the value will be delivered to the institution/research group to which the researcher belongs, so that it can be applied in the course of her scientific work”, explains Joana Paredes, president of ASPIC.

The award-winning study, says Flávia Castro, from the Tumour and Microenvironment Interactions group, “is based on the evaluation of chitosan and poly-y-glutamic acid nanoparticles as a combinatorial therapy for the treatment of breast cancer. These nanoparticles were recently described as an adjuvant therapy for breast cancer and published in the journal Biomaterials, one of the most prestigious journals in the field of Biomaterials”.

According to the researcher, "the latest results demonstrate that these nanoparticles, when combined with therapies that are being evaluated in clinical trials, such as interferon-gamma, potentiate the antitumor response in an animal model of breast cancer”. Thus, emphasizes Flávia Castro, “our strategy has enormous potential for new combinatorial therapies in cancer, through the modeling of the immune response”.

The Raquel Seruca Award, reveals Flávia Castro, “has a very special meaning and will help in my training as a researcher. Raquel is a person we all admire, who has inspired and will continue to inspire several generations of scientists. Her ability to see beyond and bring people together with the same purpose is remarkable. I couldn't be happier with this recognition”.

This research developed by Flávia Castro was also recognized with an EACR Meeting Bursary to participate in the biannual congress of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR), in Seville, Spain, and with an Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC) Conference Grant, through the COST Nano2Clinic action (CA17140), supported by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), to participate in the Immuno-Oncology Conference, in Leuven, Belgium.

The work was coordinated by researchers Maria José Oliveira (i3S and FMUP) and Raquel Gonçalves (i3S and ICBAS) in close collaboration with researchers Mário Barbosa (i3S and ICBAS), and Olivier de Wever, from the Laboratory of Experimental Cancer Research in Ghent, Belgium.