UPorto researcher receives support from FLAD to study colorectal cancer

Researcher Catarina Azevedo was recently awarded funding from the Luso-American Foundation for Development (FLAD) to study the progression of colorectal cancer. This support, worth almost seven thousand euros, will allow the doctoral student in Biomedical Sciences to develop, for nine months, experimental work at the University of Pittsburgh, in the USA.

As part of her PhD project, entitled: “Reprogramming of T cells Glycosylation: a novel immunotherapeutic strategy for Colorectal Cancer Prevention”, Catarina Azevedo intends to explore the impact of T cell glycosylation on the progression of colorectal cancer. For this, she will “investigate whether the modulation of specific glycosylation pathways in these lymphocytes constitutes a unique opportunity to control their activity and function, in order to be used as a new immunotherapy”.

In the laboratory of researcher Greg Delgoffe, explains Catarina Azevedo, “I will be able to take advantage of a technique established in this group, which allows the genetic modulation of glycosylation of T cells and evaluate their anti-tumor capacity”.

For the researcher, the recognition of her work by an institution like FLAD represents “an enormous honour”, but also “a very motivating challenge and a stimulus for the next steps in my career as a researcher”.

In addition, she adds, “it underlines once again the quality of research in the area of immunology and cancer carried out in the group ‘Immunology, Cancer & GlycoMedicine ‘, led by researcher Salomé Pinho, where I am doing my work”.